


Another Dawn

by fairytalelovr, toaquiprashippar



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Humor, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, M/M, R Plus L Equals J
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:38:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14834160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytalelovr/pseuds/fairytalelovr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/toaquiprashippar/pseuds/toaquiprashippar
Summary: When everything seems lost and the Others are about to triumph, Bran comes up with a way to try for a second chance. Now he is back in Winterfell, before the Seven Kingdoms descended into chaos, and he must take the steps to ensure their survival. But how to convince everyone?What of those who remember? Will they make the same mistakes all over again?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little idea we've been working on for a couple of weeks and thought to give it a try, for the night is dark and full of terrors but we have fanfics to turn to and fix what made it all go wrong.

Brandon bled out in the Godswood, at the feet of the Weirwood tree. He felt nothing but a cloud of sleepiness taking over his body with each passing image that flashed before his closed eyelids. 

He could hear the screams and the dragon’s roars and growls. He could hear the direwolves growling, blades meeting ice, life turning to death. Death taking life, bringing more death.

Memories flowed like a river, mayhaps a gift from the ancient ritual. With every bit of energy he found in his weak body, he drew the symbols in the sacred tree, whispering words as old as time hoping for a chance of a future that no longer was here, for days that could have been… Days they could bring again. 

The Dawn Age… The Children of the Forest, their songs, their symbols, their dances to the Gods… the First Men invading Westeros and killing so many singers of the earth, until it came the signing of The Pact between them on the Isle of Faces… The Age of Heroes… The Long Night… The murder of a lover, the making of a iron flame to save the Dawn… The Building of the Wall by a Builder and so many others with blood and magic, ice and sacrifice… The Andal Invasion… The Kings around the Realm… The Great Empire of the Dragon Lords… Daenys, the Dreamer… The Doom of Valyria… Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives… He felt the fire of Balerion, the Dread, burning Harrenhal… The fire of Vhagar, Meraxes, and The Black Dread himself burning the Field of Fire… The fall of a Dragon Rider in the Desert… Maegor, the Cruel, killing the constructors of the Red Keep… Jaehaerys, the Wise, and Queen Alysanne at Winterfell… The Dance of Dragons and with it the death of the last dragon and the disappearance of the direwolves, right after the Pact of Ice and Fire and the lack of its fulfillment… The Blackfyre Rebellions… The Rise of Aegon V, the Unlikely… The Tragedy of Summerhall and the birth of a Prince amidst salt and smoke… The Year of the False Spring, the birth of a love to seal a pact… The betrayal of several Houses, the cruelty of a mad man… A rebellion built on a lie… The death of a dragon, a blue winter rose and the birth of a prince… the storm of a lifetime… the longest summer in living memory, until Death travelled the Realm claiming and reaping lives all throughout Westeros, Essos, and all known World. 

Bran felt every death, every pain, every burnt; every fiber in his body being drained of life. He continued to write the symbols in the tree with his blood. He knew what he had to do, he needed to do this… A sacrifice was needed, the Blood of the First Men and the Children of the Forest. Somehow, Brandon Stark had both. How? He might never know, he just knew they needed that. 

He heard a loud scream, louder than the ones before. He was running out of time. If the Old Gods allowed, they just might have a chance, and he would not have to see the dusk knowing the sun would never see a new dawn. 

The harsh façade he wore broke and he wept. He wept for his father, for his brothers and Mother, he wept for Meera and Jojen; he wept for Summer, Hodor, Osha, Leaf, and all those he lost on the way. Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, and so many others. He thought of his sisters, Arya’s brave soul, Sansa’s ragged one. He could save them, he could save them all.

Jon, he was so much more than he ever had the chance to be — he and Daenerys would have another chance. Alysanne would live this time. He remembered his brother holding the Dragon Queen’s broken body, he would not see that again. Drogon growling the saddest cry anyone had ever heard anywhere, after the Night King’s lance missed the dragon but went through the Queen, taking their chance and silencing an entire battlefield, giving the dead even more advantage over the living. They were doomed, and only Brandon Stark could change this. 

Not feeling was easier, shutting it down was necessary, this hurt too much. He wept until he felt sleep take over him, and the darkness swallowed him, embraced his sacrifice, offering men a new tomorrow. Another Dawn.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now it begins.

He woke up with a thump.

“Come on, Bran! Mother said she would not call you again! Even Rickon is up and being a weirdo around the Hall!” Arya banged on his door. Her voice was not the same: it was childish, sweetly juvenile, and it made him look down at himself.

 _Did it work?_ he asked himself, desperate for a affirmative answer. He pulled his furs and looked down at his legs, covered by his sleeping trousers: with a light force, they moved. His legs _moved_.

_I have a chance now. We have a chance._

He felt the rush of hope flowing through him, a feeling he had not found within his body for so long now. Nonetheless, it was no time for celebration — it was time for action. He would not waste a moment this time.

 _Brynden, I know you can hear me. Do not leave me alone here. We lost. We lost and the Darkness won, the Long Night to last forever_ , he thought, mourning. _Send the pups now. The Gods have given us a chance; we have no time to waste. Changes must be made, lives to be saved. I know you can hear me._ He was not past the point of begging.

**_I hear you, Brandon Stark. I hear you. So be it._ **

He let out a breath he did not even know he was holding.

“BRANDON STARK, DO NOT MAKE ME GO IN THERE AND TAKE YOU DOWN TO BREAK YOUR FAST!” Catelyn Stark’s motherly threatening tone could be heard from the stairs, and he wanted to cry. For the first time in years, Bran felt like a kid again.

He ran out of his room and his little body clashed against his Mama, who he held as strongly as his thin arms allowed.

“Brandon? Is everything okay? Are you okay, my love?” he heard her worried voice.

“All is fine, Mother. All is going to be fine,” he said against the safety of her embrace, not ready to let go yet and return to his duty. 

 

* * *

 

For Catelyn Stark it was merely one more day in the sleepy, serene life of Winterfell. She woke up, got dressed, and begun her rounds to wake up her children. Robb, nearly a man grown, rarely took more than a call, as did Sansa, her perfect little lady. Arya, willful as she was, was always a surprise: on some days, she was awake and dressed, down in the Hall already when Catelyn came for her; on others, she slept like a rock and it was a near war to wake her. Bran was always her sweetheart even when he wanted a ‘little longer, mommy’. She smiled as she went into Rickon’s room, as the boy was usually on an eternal loop of morning happiness.

But not today. Today, Rickon was sitting on his bed, crying, sobbing, as Old Nan insisted that there was no such thing as a wolf in Winterfell, of course not, little lord, only the ones whose pelts are adorning the beds or the cloaks. He finally saw her and stood up running to hug her.

“Mommy!” he cried out. “Mommy, she is lying, she is! Where is Shaggy, Mommy? I want Shaggy! I haven’t been without Shaggy in forever, Mommy!”

Catelyn looked to Old Nan, but she was also at a loss. “Sweetie, look at me, Rickon. Who is Shaggy?”

The boy looked at his mother as if she had grown another head. “It’s Shaggy, Mommy. Shaggy is… he is Shaggy!” he replied as if that by itself explained the existence of this all-important being.

“And where is Shaggy now?” Catelyn insisted. Was her son inventing an imaginary friend?

“But that is the problem, Mommy!” Rickon said as if she was failing to see the issue in a very important matter. “I don’t know where he is! And he always sleeps with me, Mommy. He keeps me warm.” Rickon begun to cry again. “I'm cold now, Mommy! I want Shaggy! Where is Shaggy?”

Catelyn had no idea of even what kind of creature this imaginary friend of her son’s was supposed to be and, wanting to not upset him even more, she decided against asking.

“What about we start a search after we break our fast huh? Come on, sweetie, let’s get dressed. Then you won’t be cold anymore.”

“I'm always cold without Shaggy…” Rickon muttered.

Catelyn rolled her eyes and pulled Rickon along to where Old Nan was sorting his clothes. Really, at four name days, he was a bit too old to be upset with imaginary friends. Now she had another mystery in her hands: she would have to discover where her son had come up with this idea and what beast was this ‘Shaggy’, so as to convince him that he had never been to Winterfell.

 

* * *

 

_White silver hair. Pale skin. Violet eyes._

_Night after night, he dreamt of the girl’s soft skin, her lips on his, their fingers entangled, the weak light of candles… the smell of the ocean, the movement of the waves._

_She rested on his arms, naked; he would be damned if she were not the prettiest sight he had ever seen. This girl was more than looks and touches, he loved her. He did not know how, but with each breath she took, her breasts touched his chest, her skin in his gave him the certainty the he held his most valuable treasure._

_How can you love someone you do not know? How can your body recognize so intimately someone your mind does not? He knew she meant everything, but at the same time, he did not know her name, nor why or when or how she ever entered his dreams. Yet, she seemed to belong there, fitting perfectly._

Jon woke up from his dream. From his nightly paradise. He had been dreaming of his silver haired girl for a week now, but he did not feel like he could say it to someone else, not even Robb. Mostly certainly not Arya, she was too little to listen to such things, so he was alone.

She was silver haired, with the most beautiful violet orbs he had ever seen. Was she a Targaryen? But she could not be… All Targaryens were gone, King Robert had killed them all.

 _Not all of them_ , he reminded himself _. Queen Rhaella escaped with a child in her hand and another in her belly._

Why would he dream of an exiled girl he had never known nor met? He had no answers to such mystery; and it did not stop there. She was in the dream he kept on coming back to, as if they were in a boat, deep emotions filling that cabin. However, he had other dreams as well. Weird dreams, dreams that felt more like memories than just mere creations of his mind.

 _Beyond the Wall. Castle Black. A Valyrian sword of his own, with a white wolf with red eyes in its pommel. A white wolf with bright red eyes as his companion. He did not fear the wolf, the wolf was his and he belonged to him._ How can a person create a whole new life in his sleep and still wake up to Lady Catelyn’s bad stare and his everyday life that had nothing to do with any of that?

Jon did not think he had it in him to create such images. _Creatures of Ice rising against the living? Were those White Walkers?_ Maybe he was giving Old Nan’s stories too much thought; the Walkers were nothing but a story to make children behave themselves.

Last night he dreamt of more than his Lady, he dreamt he was stabbed in the chest. Six time, in fact. He woke up in pain twice during the night, the reason why he now had purple bags under his eyes. He hoped he would be able to perform his duties properly, even if all he wanted to do was to go back to sleep and to his Silver Lady’s arms.

 

* * *

 

Bran yawned as he plopped down on his seat at the breakfast table.

“Hey, Sleepy Head.” Robb tapped his shoulder and he smiled at him — Bran might have a mission, but he could still enjoy the happy sight he had wished for so many times on that cave.

“It is almost time for luncheon, were you dreaming you were Ser Duncan, The Tall, once again?” Jon asked as he joined him and Robb at the table. They all looked so young. Bran _felt_ young. Younger than the King’s visit, mayhap a year or two?

“I was actually dreaming about Children of the Forest and Weirwood trees this time.” He wanted to laugh at his poor inside joke.

“You should study a bit more about the Seven, you know? It would not harm any of you.” Sansa said as she and Septa Mordane appeared at the Great Hall, with a grumpy Arya right behind.

“Right, because it is the most fun. I will assure you all,” Arya murmured for the boys, who tried not to laugh.

 _Everything was back to where it all was, before everything turned to dust._ Bran ate his black bacon, but the thought stirred the best feelings in him.

“I don’t know what is happening to him, Ned. Ever since he woke up he’s been crying and asking for Shaggydog. Who is Shaggydog?” his Lady Mother was saying as she and Father entered the Hall, apparently discussing Rickon.

Bran stiffened. His brother remembered. _Why?_ He had no answers to it; but he had to talk to him. If he himself was around eight name days, Rickon should be around 4. All those terrible memories in such a small body…

He would go to him right after breaking his fast, and coming to terms with the fact that he had indeed been given a second chance. He had feared waking up to ice, darkness, and death. A reality he hoped to have left in the past.

“STOP IT, ARYA!” Sansa whined at her little sister, who tried to braid her hair into some food.

“Arya, leave your sister alone. ROBB!” Catelyn reprehended the children and ignored Jon, who looked down on the table, trying really hard not to laugh at Arya’s mischiefs.

Eddard Stark seemed like an example to Jon, with the same behavior. Exchanging looks with the boy, he left the Hall for his Lord duties, after mussing Bran’s hair.

_Oh, I am home._

 

* * *

 

Bran crossed the halls to his little brother’s room with anxiety bubbling in his stomach. After what he had heard at breakfast, he was certainly worried about what Rickon was remembering. Because the truth was that he shouldn’t be even aware that Shaggydog existed, let alone ask for him. The youngest Stark was just shy of his forth name day, so mayhap it was an overactive childish imagination. But then again, it was entirely too specific for it to be a dream. Was it possible that Rickon remembered everything? Bran shivered, remembering Sansa’s recollection of his death — that memory couldn’t have been pleasant. But then again, which of theirs had?

Old Nan was the one with Rickon, telling stories, as usual. Bran shivered — she was telling him about the Long Night.

“And when the Night King came south with his bony soldiers—”

“Hello!” Bran cut in, unable to hear any more. That story was too real, too painful for his liking.

“Bran!” Rickon exclaimed, rising to a kneeling position on the bed. “Come, come! Old Nan is telling scary stories!”

Bran forced a smile. There was a time he would beg Old Nan for her scary stories, which had always been his favorites. But only while they were stories. They had lost all their appeal when then came true.

“I wanted to talk to you, Rickon.”

The woman chortled. “Not fond of stories anymore?”

“I’ve heard this one before,” was all Bran replied.

Chuckling and muttering, Old Nan stood from her chair, saying she was going to send for some milk, as Rickon had complained of hunger. Bran crossed to the bed, sitting on it cross-legged.

“I heard you had an interesting dream.”

Rickon smiled in childish innocence. “I did! Bran, where is Shaggy? He was there when I fell asleep… well, I think he was… now that I think on it… it was a different room… but Shaggy was there with me. But he isn't here now. And Mother says she doesn’t know Shaggy.”

Bran was even more confused. So Rickon remembered Shaggydog but nothing else. He didn’t even remember he hadn’t been living in Winterfell, only the direwolf’s presence. Because their connection was magic, Bran deduced. Magic living in their blood, the blood of the First Men mixed with the blood of the Children of the Forest.

“Do you remember anything else? Other than Shaggydog?”

Rickon frowned as he thought. “There was… a woman? She cared for me, sung songs, but different songs than Old Nan,” he replied several moments later, deep in thought. “Someone came to Winterfell and we went for a ride in the forest, didn’t we?”

Bran almost laughed. _It was a bit more sinister than that, little brother_ , he wanted to reply.

“And Summer!” The younger boy shot up again. “Where is Summer, Bran?”

“I don’t know,” the older brother replied with a sigh. “I just… I hope they come home soon, Rickon.”

“Me too!”

“But until, then, why don’t we keep them our secret?” Bran proposed and Rickon frowned again. “So Mother won't worry that they’re not here, Rickon. You don’t want to worry Mother, do you?”

“No! No, of course not!”

“So let’s keep Shaggydog and Summer our secret. Deal?”

“Deal!”

 

* * *

 

Bran sat before the fireplace in his chambers, thinking. Rickon remembered Shaggy, Summer, and even a bit of Osha. Did that mean everyone would get dreams? Did that mean that soon enough everyone in Winterfell, and perhaps even beyond, would remember a different life, a life where it all went so terribly wrong? Ironically for someone who came back in time, only the future would tell.

Another thing that was worrying the boy was: what was he to do? His prayer — his **_answered_** prayer — to the Old Gods had been a desperate attempt, a mad plan to try and save himself, his family, and everyone in Westeros and the Known World actually. He hadn’t had the time to consider the steps to take once his wishes had been granted. Because right now he was merely Brandon Stark, the eight-year-old second son of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell. He was nobody. What could he do to change a single thing?

He stared into the fire for a long while, thinking, trying to come up with a solution. Only one was reasonable: he needed to tell his father. An eight-year-old boy, a second son, could do nothing to set in motion the changes that would need to be done, that would need to be urgently put in motion in order to make sure that first: the Seven Kingdoms didn’t descent into civil war; and second, that they would be prepared when the Others invariably managed to breach the Wall.

That was what needed to be done, Bran decided. So he kept his position, staring at the fire, remembering Drogon’s and Rhaegal’s fires in battle, their unchecked fury once Daenerys fell, their untethered destruction once Jon had fallen as well, and like that extinguished all bonds between dragon and human.

The conversation with his father would be long, serious, heavy, and, most regrettably, his father would initially refuse to believe in him. He would deny the terrible supernatural in favor of the sensible natural.

Bran closed his eyes. It would be too difficult to prove his words… unless… unless he knew something… he had no physical evidence of his claims, but if he knew a little secret, a ‘small’ detail Ned had kept to himself, something never spoken of aloud, something that couldn’t have been told or overheard… then perhaps… perhaps Father would be convinced!

Bran smiled. ‘Aye, this is it. I have a plan. Now I just have to go about putting it into place.’

 

* * *

 

Bran sat in his chair staring at his father. Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North was looking at his child as if he had just sprouted a second head, completely befuddled. But Bran only waited. After having told Father about Jon Arryn’s death, the King’s invitation, the departure to King's Landing, the Lannister coup, the War of the Five Kings, the disintegration of the family and even the Long Night, he knew the man needed at least a moment to get his bearings.

“Bran… son, what you had was a dream. Mayhap a very realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless, son. There is no such—”

“I can prove it wasn’t a dream,” the boy said, a wise voice, too old for the eight name days old body speaking it. “There is a secret only you and one other person in the North know. A secret you intend to take to your grave.”

Ned sat back, straightening his back. Bran’s voice so far, his tone, and his far-fetched tale were easy to be swept off as a dream. But now he seemed to be in possession of the proof that would make it real. Because there was one such secret Ned kept. One he had told no other soul. Outside the solar, listening through the crack in the door, Catelyn frowned and inched closer. What secret could her husband have?

“The room smelled of blood and winter roses,” Bran continued in his ethereal, too-wise voice and Ned’s heart failed a beat. “You had just ridden for weeks on end to reach the tower to save her, you had just fought to an inch of your life against the Kingsguard posted downstairs. You heard her scream and you rushed inside, to the room at the top of the tower, the farthest one. And the room smelled of blood and winter roses. She was lying amidst petals blue as frost in a bed of blood. You set your sword at the trunk by the foot of the bed and you knelt next to her. She smiled when she saw you. Then a maid put Jon in your arms and she made you promise.”

 _Promise me, Ned_ , the words echoed in his mind as if Lyanna were whispering them right now. _You have to protect him_. Outside, Catelyn bit her lip to contain a gasp. They were talking about the bastard’s mother!

“She made you promise to protect her son, to protect Jon,” Bran went on. “And you did. You promised to keep him safe, you promised to protect him. And she raised her head and whispered in your ear ‘his name is Aegon Targaryen’.”

Catelyn used the wall to support her weight as her legs failed her. _His name is Aegon Targaryen._ But how? Winter roses… Kingsguard… Ned had ridden for weeks to save her… pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You must have loved his mother so very much,” she had once yelled at Ned, “to love her bastard so much!”

“How… how did you…?” Ned started, flabbergasted.

“I told you, Father. It wasn’t a dream. Jon isn’t really your son. You claimed him and raised him to protect him, a promise you made your sister on her deathbed. Because Jon’s real name is Aegon Targaryen and he is the legitimate son of your sister, Lyanna Stark, and her husband, Rhaegar Targaryen, the Prince of Dragonstone. Jon was never a bastard. He is as trueborn as the rest of us. He is the heir to the Iron Throne. He was born the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Ned had lost all sight of composure, letting his chin fall open in his complete shock. But Catelyn had heard enough. For fourteen years she had suffered the humiliation of her husband having a bastard. And all along it had been a lie. She opened the door and stepped through the threshold, her face making it clear she had heard the conversation. Ned paled even more, losing whatever color was left in his cheeks.

Bran blushed. This was not what he had intended. His plan was to get his father to believe his story, to have him start making the necessary changes and taking the needed precautions. His mother, he knew, required more delicate handling. Maybe Sansa was right, he really did need to learn some tact.

“I think,” he started, standing up from his chair, “that I’m going to leave the two of you to talk.” Bran started to backtrack to the door. “We’ll… we’ll finish our conversation later, Father.”

And he spirited out of the room, running away from the explosion that was bound to happen.

 

* * *

 

“Is it true?” Catelyn asked in a trembling voice.

Ned swallowed dry. “Catelyn...”

“Ned, is it true?” she insisted and he nodded. “You let me… for fourteen years, you lied to me!”

“I never meant…”

“To what? To lie? You did lie, Ned! And what a big lie it was! You lied to the entire realm! You lied to your lady wife, but worse than that you lied to your king!”

“I was protecting him!”

“You had a duty.”

“Aye,” Ned agreed. “But my first duty is to my family.”

“He isn’t your son!”

“No, not by blood. By blood he is my sister’s son and her dying wish was to make sure he lived. I had a blood duty to uphold. And he’s been my son since I first held him in my arms, promising to protect him.”

“Can you not see how dangerous this is?” Catelyn cried out. “How much of a threat to our family, to our children his mere existence presents?”

“There is no danger because there is no one to speak of it. No one to tell Robert.”

“You commit treason and—”

“Treason?” Ned finally raised his voice, anger getting to him. “What treason have I committed? Have I plotted against my King? Have I ever given any indication that—”

“You lied to your King, Ned! You lied about how your sister died!”

“I did not. She died of a fever. I merely did not say that said fever took her after complications in childbed.”

“Robert Baratheon believes your sister loved him.”

“I never told him that. I never once said ‘Lyanna loves you’.”

“And you lied to me,” Catelyn said, feeling betrayed.

“You can’t be blamed for a secret you don’t know about.” His tone showed finality, as if he had thought it through and made a conscious decision.

She looked at him seriously. “Was that your reason? Or did you simply not trust me?”

Ned looked away from her for a moment. “We were strangers when we married, Catelyn. You loved my brother and all you got in the end was me. We had to learn to trust each other.”

“I loved you too,” she said, hurt, before leaving the room.

 

* * *

“Lady Stark–” She stumbled upon someone, the last person she wanted to see right now. The boy looked at her, terrified of the mess of drinks he had spilled on her and himself. Normally, she would curse him away, have him eat his supper in his room so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

However, the recent turn of events flooded her senses, his scared big grey eyes now looking down in a sign of shame. Jon was a boy of five and ten, but his scared eyes took her back to when he was but eight name days old and he and Robb had decided to play hide-the-treasure inside the castle and she caught Jon searching for the token Robb had hidden in the Lord’s Chambers, hers and Ned’s rooms.

Oh, how she had scolded him. He had cried silently, she heard the servants commenting on it later, on how cruel the Lady of Winterfell was for punishing a child for playing with his brother. She had been so ashamed of her actions, she had regretted them instantly, but after that day, the boy never again entered her solar without Ned, he did his best to hide from her too.

_I hated him for something he had no fault over. Not for intruding into my chambers, not for intruding into mine and my children’s lives. No, I hated Jon Snow for breathing, for reminding me I was not enough for my husband, that someone else had had him instead of me._

_Gods, forgive me._

_What would Lady Lyanna think of me? She probably hates me from where she is right now. Rhaegar Targaryen would want to burn my body while the She-Wolf rips apart my soul. How would Brandon see her now? The woman that mistreated his nephew. A motherless, innocent child Catelyn had hated from the day her blue Tully eyes had set on him. Brandon might have been many things, but he was passionate about his family, so very protective of his pack. He would have hated her too._

The realization came to her that the child would have been a Stark had it been Lyanna’s or Ned’s; Catelyn had no right to condemn a child to the loneliness of the Wall, where she had dreamed of her husband sending him, nor did she have any right to make him feel any less than he was.

_How wrong I have been. How blind._

So many thoughts in a matter of a moment, and the boy kept apologizing and looking down, after the collision. He feared her reprimand.

“You did nothing wrong, Jon. I did not look where I was going.” She looked at him, answering in a quiet voice. He looked up as if he could not believe her, had she ever called him by his given name before?

“I… Even so, I am sorry, Lady Catelyn.” He answered quietly, and left her company as fast as a boy his age possibly could.

_Can I ever repair this? Can I forgive my Lord Husband for his lie? His mistrust? Do I even want to?_

She dried the tears her eyes could no longer hold and she walked slowly through the halls of Winterfell, until she arrived at her Sept, where she would stay and pray until her heart stopped aching.

So she prayed to the Father, to have mercy on her judgment, but to carry it through as he saw fit; she prayed to the Mother, asking her forgiveness and protection, not only for her own but also for the one she had neglected. She prayed to the Crone, for the wisdom she craved so much right now; she prayed to the Warrior for the strength they would need for the Battles that they would face for this revelation — time heals all wounds but forgives no sins. She prayed to the Stranger, an odd prayer, but she prayed nonetheless, for the demise of all of those who ever wished to destroy her family, whoever they were and whatever name they carried. There was nothing she could pray to the Smith for, if not for the creation of bonds she had never tried to forge before. Mayhap this was not his domain, but she was desperate and she had only her faith to soothe her soul.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys woke up like coming out of a nightmare.

_Alysanne._

_Jon._

_Missandei._

All of her people, all of her friends, the Starks, the ones who took her as a family. 

A spear passing through her and taking away her senses, taking away her soul. She felt the sobs coming strong, the tears pouring out of her, hard, coming along with her sobs.

A handmaiden entered her solar, trying to soothe her cries... to understand what happened to her. No one could ever understand what happened to me, no one could feel my pain.

The handmaiden prepared her a bath, so she lay there and tried to lose herself in the heat, until sleep claimed her senses. She suddenly found herself in front of her reflection on a lake. She was so young, she should be what? 15? Yet, in her heart, she had known so much pain, so much loss. She was tired and she missed home — though not a place, a someone. Dark hair, grey eyes, pouty lips. Jon. Her nephew, her husband, her soul mate.

_Daenerys, you mustn't change a thing of what is coming until I give you a signal, do you hear me? Your journey is painful yet it is necessary. You need your dragons and the world needs you._

_Bran_? she asked in her dreams, she found herself in front of Winterfell's Weirwood Heart tree. It was dark but the moon illuminated her sight.

_It is me, Daenerys. I asked the Old Gods for another chance, and they have granted one to us. It will not be easy, and not everyone can know of it. Sacrifices will need to be made, but we cannot let Westeros fall into the Long Night once again._

So she was not crazy, it was all true, she had not imagined the spear that had hit her or the man she so loved; she had not imagined their lovemaking or his kisses caressing her face and neck; she had not imagined her children, the ones she lost, with and without scales: Rhaego, Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion, and the yet unborn Alysanne. She had not imagined Missandei, the Unsullied, Winterfell, the Starks, Jon's true parentage; her brother's son owned her heart and her soul.

_You did not imagine any of it, Daenerys. However, we cannot stop some of your miseries, we cannot stop your first wedding or your first grand loss. Your loss brought dragons back into the world and your children can help us bring the Dawn._

She knew he was right, but she would hate every minute of it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello our dear readers!
> 
> We're so sorry it took us this long to give you this chapter, but we have been so very busy with real life and our own individual fics -- Winter Roses and The Lines of a Song -- that things just piled up and finding time together to write is a challenge we're loving to undertake :D 
> 
> But now we deliver you the first chapter of Another Dawn! We hope you enjoyed it as, as always, would love to hear your thoughts and comments on what you thought and what can improve.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories come and go around Westeros, and the Gods send a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, thank you so much for the lovely and warm response to this, we're so thrilled you guys are enjoying reading it as we are writing it! 
> 
> Sorry it took us so long to update, as bae said, we have our individual stories and also real life, and everything together makes it almost impossible for us to update every week like you guys ask us to. 
> 
> But here's the new chapter, let us know what you think of it!   
> Thanks for reading it and share your thoughts with us! <33

Catelyn had not been seen in three days, hiding in her Sept when not in her personal chambers, separate from the one she shared with her lord husband. She loved him but did not want to see his face right now.

The burden of his lies was weighting down on her, bringing waves of shame and misery to her weary mind. She had hated this child from the moment she first saw him, his strange grey eyes; it did not seem so strange anymore. She had not met Lyanna but the wolf girl had the same eyes her Brandon did.

How could she have been so stupid as to not realize the child was not Ned’s? It was normal for men to father bastards, but Eddard was not like all men. He was loyal to a fault; he had broken Northern traditions for her, to make her happy and satisfied, such as building the very Sept she stood in now. She felt the tears stream down her face and she was crying once again.

She wanted to go to Ned’s godswood and ask forgiveness for her crimes against Jon, but she feared their rage against her. The gods of the North were not as forgiving as hers.

She also wanted to go to Jon and ask his forgiveness, and if he allowed, start mothering him, but the boy was four and ten name days old, and after all his little life, he would hardly accept any kind of warmth from her without suspicions.

She thought of her own children, every single one of them. How she would hate anyone that mistreated them. How strongly did Lyanna Stark loathe her from wherever her soul was taken to?

Catelyn had no idea what time it was or for how long she had been here at her Sept when she felt dizziness and realized she did not remember the last time she ate. Hoping not to run into her husband, she collected herself and went quietly on her way to the castle to get herself a plate of food when she felt someone tumble into her.

“I am sorry, Lady Stark. I was not paying attention, I will not stay on your way again.” The one voice she wanted to hear less than her husband’s resonated on the halls they found themselves in.

She looked up and met Jon’s eyes. Ned’s eyes. Lyanna Stark’s eyes. What a cruel punishment life brought upon her, she thought, and she probably deserved it.

“It is okay, Jon. It’s dark, there is no problem,” she answered quietly.

He looked shocked; she had never called him _Jon_ before.

“Thank you, Lady Catelyn.” He nodded and left confused and ashamed. She felt the sobs coming over her once again. Would they ever stop?

“Mother? Are you alright?” She heard a soft voice coming from behind her. “What did you say to Jon? Why was he running out of here, Mother?” Little Arya, her fierce she-wolf glared at her. She and Jon were as close as siblings could be, he was clearly her favorite brother, and she was his favorite sibling, even more so than Robb.

“Nothing, my sweet. I promise you I was not mean to Jon.” She was tired of being seen as a scorned woman mistreating the bastard, even if that was exactly what she was.

“What happened, Mother? You never call him Jon.” Arya’s deep Stark eyes looking for something else in her mother’s face.

“Nothing, Sweetling. All is fine. I am just tired.” She had lost the little hunger she felt before.

“You’ve been gone for almost three days, Mother. Father said not to bother you, but we have missed you,” her little girl told her quietly, changing her support on her other leg, and Catelyn then noticed her daughter had bare feet and only a shift. Oh, her wild cub. No matter her issues, her children need her, and now more than ever, she needed them.

“I have been praying for the last few days but I am back in action now,” she stated and her girl’s little face opened in a shy smile. Ned’s smile. “But my chambers are cold and I would not mind my little girl’s company, I know it would give me sweeter dreams.” She loved the teething smile she got in return.

“I can sleep with you. My furs are warm and my bed is huge, Mama.” Catelyn smiled. It was a cold night for a summer… how many cold nights had Jon Snow wished for a mother to cuddle with him? No, she would not do this now.

“Come along, Mama. We can get ourselves some of Sansa’s lemon pies; she will not even have to know. I know where Gage keeps it overnight.” Arya’s little bright smile shone away the darkness in Catelyn’s heart.

“Come on, then. Should you not put on a robe and a slipper on your feet? You will get a cold.”

“I am the blood of the wolf, Mama. I do not get colds so easily. My blood is ice.” She looked so smug. Catelyn laughed quietly in order not to wake Sansa, who slept in the nearest room.

“Well, then off we go, I guess.” She let Arya guide the way and found comfort and love in her daughter’s presence, forgetting her misery for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

Jaime blinked awake the haze of sleep. When his brain caught up, he sat up in a jump: it was not freezing cold, rather, he felt the stifling heat of summer in King’s Landing. Blinding sun rather than a snowstorm. No longer the eternal night brought on by the Night King, but the early morning sun. _What in the Seven Hells is happening?_ he wondered, leaving the bed — his old bed in the White Sword Tower rather than the poor excuse for a cot he’d been sleeping in during their mad retreat south. He then suddenly noticed how he was holding himself upright on the bed and gasped in shock, bringing his right arm up for inspection. His right hand was right there, attached and functional, all five fingers moving, even if a bit stiffly.

Cautiously, he went to the window. King’s Landing was already busy with its normal hustle and bustle, people coming and going, trading at the market, soldiers training, women carrying around the washing. Nothing seemed out of place, out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed to indicate the bleak and disturbing things Jaime remembered.

_Was it a dream? A terrible nightmare?_ he wondered again. But it couldn’t be, could it? The cold felt real enough, that was for certain. Not to mention that he was fucking certain his mind was not creative enough to come up with such intricate plots. To imagine such horrors… And the pain… the pain of having his hand cut off… that was impossible to have been a figment of his imagination. The sharp pain by itself would have been enough to jolt a dying man awake, let alone a healthy man from a bloody nightmare. And as for the rest of the madness… the War of the Five Kings; Joffrey’s death; Tyrion’s sham of a trial; Father’s murder; Myrcella’s murder; Cersei’s madness; the Sept of Baelor up in green flames; Tommen’s suicide; Daenerys Targaryen coming to Westeros with her dragons; Jon Snow named King in the North and warning about the dead marching south; the fucking dead!; Cersei betraying all of the living in her mad quest for power; Jon Snow actually being Rhaegar’s legitimate son, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne; enduring loss after loss as the wights and White Walkers marched south; people dying in droves, allies falling one by one. Brienne… Brienne, though, she perhaps was too good to be real, that was true. His one solace amidst the insanity the rest of the world had become. And the way she challenged him, inspired him to do better, to _be_ better…

_No, I’m certainly not capable of such wild imagination_. Though how no one in the whole continent had ever wondered about Ned Stark’s alleged bastard still baffled him. How had his father, the great and clever Tywin Lannister not even suspected? Perhaps Tyrion had been right in saying that people always chose to believe the easy explanation in front of them than to imagine the complicated possibilities.

He kept watching the routine of the place through his window for long moments. _Have I somehow been sent back in time?_ Then he jumped up startled. A crow cawed loudly and obnoxiously on the gargoyle nearby. Then the bird looked at Jaime with too intelligent eyes and flew away. _I guess that answers the question_ , he said, all too aware of Bran Stark’s affinity for crows. _But who else remembers?_ He knew of one thing, though: he would never again be a pawn to his sister’s desires. Lady Olenna had been right: Cersei would destroy him if he let her. He was given a second chance to stop her before her lust for power grew too incontrollable. And he would do it, if it was the last thing he did.

 

* * *

 

_Piercing blue eyes; Blue fire burning the walls of Winterfell; Sansa; Bran._ Why were her dreams full of pain and misery? Why could she only find pain when her eyes closed?

_She saw the skulls of dragons and two shadows talking hidden amongst it; she feared being discovered but she knew how to protect herself; I know how to use a sword; I know I know; I learn how to water dance; I also learned how to kill and to see; appear and disappear with the same easiness a soul ever could; she learned how to be a shadow, a ghost._

_She saw Harrenhall; she became the Ghost of Harrenhall. She saw an elegant, ruthless man she attended to. She did not know who he was, only that she hated him. Her tiny little heart loathed that man. As she hated the man, she saw someone carrying Ice at the Sept of Baelor, the one who tried carried out an angry little man, or more like a child’s order to give him her father’s head._ She saw nothing, but heard it all, and she woke up crying. She screamed loud enough to be heard beyond the wall.

“Arya, my child. What is going on?” Her Mother held her little body against herself. _I lost you too, Mother. I lost you and Robb. Why do I keep dreaming of losses and pain? I can barely understand this myself._

“Bad dreams, Mother. Please, do not let go of me.” She held her as strongly as her little arms allowed.

 

* * *

 

This session seemed to have no end. Robb was bored and he wanted to be out in the yard with Jon, Theon, and Ser Rodrik, practicing his swordplay.

In truth, he had been feeling somewhat awkward near Theon. Nothing had occurred but his friend’s presence unnerved him, as if he was about to betray his trust at any second... but he just brushed it off. Theon was his friend; this was all horseshit.

“The Crag,” Jon answered the Maester, getting Robb’s attention.

“The Westerlings’ seat,” he blurted, not exactly knowing where that came from.

“Exactly, Robb. You should study with Robb and Jon, Theon Greyjoy. Mayhap you would also know your answers.” The Maester smiled at the Stark boys.

Robb was astonished, the Crag? How did he know about that place? He felt a pain in his stomach. Not strong enough to alert Maester Luwin, but strong enough to cause him to shiver, getting Jon’s attention.

“Robb? You okay there?” Jon whispered.

“Aye, it’s nothing,” Robb dismissed it. He had probably heard the Maester speak of the place and the Westerlands’ House and answered to it.

Brown eyes came into mind, beautiful brown eyes. A stranger’s eyes.

I must be losing my mind, Robb thought to himself.

And then he did himself the favor of ignoring all these weirdness, he did not want to be the first Stark in how many centuries doomed to madness.

 

* * *

 

Jon had woken up to a terrible feeling of failure. Complete and utter failure. As if he had been almost reaching something and then it had been snatched away. It was a dark, deep feeling that took root in his heart and yet he couldn’t remember the dream, the circumstances of this failure. So he decided to go through the motions. Wake up, get dressed, go down to the Great Hall for breakfast, go with Robb and Theon to lessons and then, finally, the peace of the training yard.

It was late morning when he heard his name being called. His heart pulsed painfully at the familiar childish voice and he turned around to see Rickon running in his direction. The feeling of failure returned in full force. Suddenly, it was as if nothing else in the world mattered more than getting to his youngest brother. As if both their lives depended on it. His feet responded to a siren’s call he knew not where it came from and he just dropped his training sword, running towards Rickon. The little boy finally reached him, jumping up as Jon reached for him and then hugging as if he too felt this strange and mysterious connection.

“You found me, Jon!” Rickon cried. “I made it to you!”

Jon tightened his arms, feeling his brother safe and sound within their circle. “I’ve got you Rickon. I’ve got you. You’re safe, we’re safe. We’re home.”

“He’s coming after me, Jon. He said he would. He said he would kill me in front of you.”

Jon felt anger unfurling in his chest — anger like he had never felt in his fourteen years of life. And it was more than momentary anger brought on by the comment. It was old, seethed-on anger, anger towards an old foe he could no longer get revenge from. “He won’t, Rickon,” he promised though he couldn’t quite name the ‘he’. “I promise you, nobody is getting anywhere near you.”

Rickon nodded and went back to tightly hugging Jon as if only the contact would soothe his little heart.

The training yard had stopped to watch the scene and Robb walked over, concerned with Rickon’s sudden appearance and clear distress. But Septa Mordane, with her honed-in radar to feel whenever Jon was too close to the Stark children, appeared and tried to split them apart. Jon tried to break the hug, if only to please her, but the boy wasn’t keen on it. He yelled, and screamed, and cried, nearly giving the woman a black eye when his flaying elbow went dangerously close to her face.

“Septa, perhaps you should wait for Rickon to calm down,” Robb tried to intervene.

“Let go of the little lord, you… you little… ill-born…” Septa Mordane spat, not seeming to have heard.

“Septa!” Robb exclaimed.

But the woman forcefully pulled Rickon down and started dragging him away. The courtyard was gossiping now, looking at it sourly, and Jon only stood there, passively watching and feeling his arms weirdly empty and the feeling of failure overtaking him again. But Rickon didn’t go quietly, yelling and kicking about. Ned came into the courtyard then, looking at scene shocked.

“What in the blazes is happening here?”

Septa Mordane stood up straight, simultaneously loosing the grip on Rickon, who immediately ran away again, jumping into Jon’s arms, who just as quickly squeezed him closer.

“My lord! I just… the little lord needs to go to his reading of the Seven Pointed Star, my lord.”

“Rickon is distressed, father,” Robb said. “Jon was soothing him when the Septa came and started calling Jon names and dragging Rickon away by force.”

“Oh that was not…” the woman started.

“Are you calling my son a liar, Septa?” Ned asked and the woman blushed, looking down.

“That is exactly what happened, my lord,” Ser Rodrik said. “The little lord came looking for comfort with his brother and the Septa thought it reasonable to pull him away. Jon did not even react and the Septa started to call him names.”

“Septa Mordane, I’m sure you have other duties,” Ned said with a stormy face.

“But, my lord… the boy needs to…”

“Lord Rickon is distressed. He found comfort with his brother, then this is where he will remain until he is calmer. Now, _I do believe you have other duties, do you not_?” he asked pointedly.

She blushed profusely, bowed her head, and left in a rush. Ned looked over to his sons, seeing that Rickon was clinging strongly to Jon, his face turned to the side as Robb was obviously trying to distract him. By Jon’s smile, it seemed it was a good story. Finally, Rickon pulled back a little, though he clung to Jon strongly when the older boy tried to set him down.

“Jon, Robb, I think your brother would enjoy a lesson on fletching arrows,” Ned said. “Don’t you agree, Ser Rodrik?”

“Very much so, Lord Stark! Come now, boys, let’s gather ‘round the table!”

“Bran!” Ned called. “I would have a word with you.”

 

* * *

 

Daenerys knew what she had to do, but she hated every piece of it. She would not know how to face Drogo as if he were a stranger. She had hated, then loved, then mourned him. She would have birthed his child had the baby not been murdered still inside her by that witch.

She did not know how to do this and not break again. It was easy enough to remember her actions of the past life, hard was to act the same knowing the amount of pain she would face in a few years’ time.

Her dragons were not only necessary to her heart, they were the only way the world would see its Dawn and end the Long Night. She thought of her lovely Viserion, attacked and dying in front of her eyes, and then dying again, the final death.

No, she would not let it happen again, she would make sure Viserion lived, that he was alive and warm beside her and Jon with his lovely molten golden fire showing no traces of the Walker’s blue flame.

She knew what she had to know, she had been to the House of the Undying and she understood what it all meant for her and for Westeros. She had been to the Free Cities, freed slaves, and broken chains. She knew which Houses she could count on and which not, she only needed the right plan to help her get from here to Winterfell without losing so much along the way.

She could not help but think of her Rhaego, the child she never heard cry. Tears streamed down her face.

_You will come to me, darling. I will birth you alive and well, just not here and not now. Not as before and this time, you’ll come with Stark coloring and my eyes_ , she whispered to her heart.

Jon would be at Winterfell right now, clueless to anything about their shared past and still living under Lady Stark’s scorn and Lord Stark’s protection. She would come to him, she promised herself.

She would find him: her, Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal. She just needed a plan.

She got up from her bed. They had been guests at a merchant’s house and she knew the man eyed her with lust: maybe he wanted the exiled Dragon princess in his bed, it would grow him in the eyes of the other merchants. But the only thing he would get from her would be her knife, the one Arya taught her how to handle.

She wished for Jorah then, her bear would protect her. But he was still drinking and fighting somewhere in Essos. She would need to do this by herself. Viserys could not be trusted, as he imagined himself the heir to the Seven Kingdoms and only saw Usurper’s enemies and potential allies, his mind apparently closed to the other people who would want to harm them — mayhap in Aegon’s behalf, the pretender who claimed himself Rhaegar’s child with Elia.

She then got up and wrote the letter she knew she needed. She would not marry Khal Drogo, her victory would not depend on a man. She mentally said goodbye to her past and focused all her strength in her future. She would get to Jon, with her own mind and power. He was her equal, not her owner. Together, they would defeat Mad Queens, Ice Monsters and Black Dragons.

This time, things would be different.

 

* * *

 

Olenna woke up as if she had been sleeping for years. Her body felt reinvigorated in a way she could not explain. She looked around her and she found herself back in her chambers, in Highgarden.

_Is this some kind of ridiculous joke?_ she thought to herself. _Well, maybe that poor fool did not kill me, maybe his potion was wrong._ She was in a middle of her thought when she heard the knock.

“Yes?” she called.

“Grandmother? May I come in? I need to speak to you.” She heard her favorite voice in the world. Her heart beating faster than her brain could process.

“Margaery?” she murmured, amongst tears.

“Grandmother?” The lovely girl called for her again.

“Yes.” She gulped, trying to keep the sob she wanted to let out. “Come inside, my dear.”

Margaery came inside her chambers, beautiful and young. The girl wore a silky green and blue gown, her hair pulled back in her favorite hairdo and her beautiful heart-shaped face smiley and warm.

“Ma—Margaery?” Olenna stumbled on words.

“Grandmother? Are you all right? Did something happen to you?” She came next to her grandmother, now worry all over her young face.

“No, my dearest. I just—” She needed a time to breathe in and breathe out. She needed to comprehend what was in fact happening to her then. Was this heaven? Was she in one of the seven heavens holding her granddaughter in her arms?

“Do you want me to get you some tea? I am sorry to scare you. I just needed your help.” She sounded sad.

“No, all is fine now.” She took her girl’s face in her old wrinkled hands. “All is just as it should be, darling.” Her heart was swollen with happiness. This was no heaven: she was alive and so was Margaery.

“Grandmother, father insists in me going to King’s Landing, he wants me to become queen, but everyone knows the King beats his wife and he whores all around the Realm. Don’t let me go, please, I beg you.” Margaery had tears coming down her beautiful face and Olenna wanted to smack her stupid son’s forehead.

“You will not go to that wretched place, my darling. I can assure you, you will not come near a Baratheon or a Lannister,” she assured Margaery, holding her to her body.

“But, what of—” The girl was then interrupted by Olenna.

“Leave Mace to me, Marge. Go stay with Willas or Loras for now, my darling. There is much to be done and little time to do so.” She rose from her bed, deciding to understand what was happening and to make sure whatever happened before, had it been in dreams or reality, never happened again.

“Are you sure you don’t need me, Grandmother?” Margaery asked her, worried.

“Not now, lovely girl. But if you may, call for my handmaiden, I need to dress. And tell your father and brothers to wait for me in my solar in a few moments. I want you there as well,” Olenna said.

“As you wish.” She nodded and kissed her cheek before leaving the room.

Olenna looked at the door Margaery had just closed. Oh no, no Baratheon would touch her granddaughter. Daenerys Targaryen was coming and she had to make sure House Tyrell sided with the right side of history now.

_Growing strong, with fire and blood._

 

* * *

 

After his second conversation with Bran and the consequent inner turmoil with the influx of terrible and dismaying information, Ned found that staying in his solar was going to suffocate him sooner or later. So he sent to the stables to organize a hunt. He needed the freshness of the woods, something clean and simple and that made sense.

Robb and Jon, from the height of their four and ten years, were more than eager to join in, as was Theon. Guards and men who lived around also joined. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing different than the stagnancy of the North. Nothing that suggested to Ned that his eight-year-old son was travelling back in time with the blessings of the Old Gods to change a grim and horrifying future. Nothing except Bran’s knowledge of a secret kept locked up and a few other facts he had no way of knowing without being told: little mundane moments, snippets really, from Ned’s childhood in Winterfell — Bran could have heard the tale from one of the long-time servants, but was it really likely they would have remembered an argument he and Benjen had had over the direwolf statue guarding the entrance of the crypts? Or perhaps the one time Lyanna had been frustrated with Father’s denial to allow her to have breeches made so she could ride, so she went into his room, stole one of his, and proceeded to nearly give Lord Rickard an apoplexy? No, it wasn’t very likely. They would remember Lyanna’s wildness and impulsiveness, not her stealing her big brother’s clothes.

Therefore, if Bran’s knowledge was indeed legitimate, then one had to admit that the boy did have this… this seer ability. It wasn’t a comforting thought. Because it meant that what he was saying about the future was just… Ned sighed for what seemed the hundredth time. Jon Arryn, assassinated; him leaving Winterfell for the ridiculous games of the smelly southern capital; Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella as bastards; Robert, assassinated; Lannister power-grabbing; Joffrey’s madness; Robb going to war, named King in the North; the Red Wedding; Sansa as hostage, married off twice, raped by a sadistic cunt; Arya, shaped into a ruthless, dishonorable killer; Rickon, murdered in a Bolton power-grab, but still sadistically — Ned could only imagine what Jon must have gone through, failing to stop it when his brother was so very close; Jon, retaking Winterfell with the Knights of the Vale, who rode for Sansa, their family restored; Jon, named King in the North regardless of being known as a bastard; Jon, sailing south to treat with Daenerys Targaryen and falling in love; Jon and the Dragon Queen, together against all odds; dragons, real, fire-breathing dragons, alive again; the Wall, fallen; death literally riding south and taking all in its path; Winterfell, lost, burned down in a bloody battle; everything taken over by snow and ice and death; then, at their last stand, the Three Eyed Raven begged the gods, in a desperate attempt, for a second chance. A do-over.

Ned exhaled, adjusting his seat on the saddle, taking solace on watching Jon and Robb chase each other through the woods. Maybe that was the way to look at things, he thought. Whatever senseless violence and mistakes they had done before, the gods had granted them the chance to do better. Perhaps this time, things could be more than a little different. Knowing in advance the naïve mistakes he had made in King’s Landing, Ned wouldn’t fall prey to Cersei Lannister’s machinations again. This time, he promised himself, I will not watch or give cause to any of my children being vulnerable.

He laughed as Jon shot a deer from a distance, startling Robb, who was nearly thrown off his horse. Jon laughed as well, carefree and weightless as he was only out here in the woods. And then a wave of guilt took over. Bran had given clear jabs on the whole ‘bastard’ issue. How Jon was melancholic and broody and thought so little of himself because of his alleged birth status. Ned knew it had been the only way to protect him. But hearing Bran’s account of what his son had suffered at the Wall… how Jon had been so angry that his father had allowed him to go to such a dark place, and all because Ned had allowed Catelyn her whims, because he hadn’t trusted her with a truth that would ensure Jon was next to Robb, a loyal bannerman, perhaps even with a family.

Then he sighed again. Catelyn was another issue altogether. They hadn’t spoken in three days, not since she had overheard his conversation with Bran and then they had had their little confrontation. She had been hiding away in her sept and Ned had no idea how to approach her. Because the problem was not only the truth about Jon, the lie he had told her for all these years, shaming her and making her suffer, however good were his intentions. There was the issue of Bran’s tale. Of how his wife had committed acts that endangered their family, kick-started a war, undermined their son in front of his bannermen, gotten unusually bad deals from a man who already owed her fealty. How could Ned confront Catelyn about that when he himself had trouble believing Bran’s story? How could he trust her again when he did believe Bran?

If Ned hadn’t been watching his sons, though, he wouldn’t have noticed when Jon stiffened and turned Winterstorm south, though they were riding northeast. Robb followed and Ned was close behind, hearing Jory warn the others and start following as well. There was only the sound of hooves riding hard against the soft forest floor for a moment and then they broke into a clearing and Ned pulled his horse to a stop. Jon was already dismounted — not like any of them could keep up with his speed, so much like his mother that he was — and kneeling next to a fallen… Ned shivered. From old stories a description would suffice, but Bran had added enough details. However, this she-wolf wasn’t dead, at least not yet. She was growling, but Jon was gentling her, making clear he meant no harm, and perhaps she was too weak to stop him, or she actually believed him.

“We need to get her to Maester Luwin!” Jon exclaimed softly so as to not startle the direwolf.

“Gods, do you see that?” Robb said, kneeling besides his brother.

Ned was close enough to see it now, though he had a pretty good guess of what he’d find. Cuddling close to the she-wolf there were six little pups, hurdling for warmth. The children’s direwolves, just as Bran had said. But why had the mother… Ned frowned. In the future Bran had recounted, by the time the pups were found, the mother was already dead, a stag’s antlers through her throat. But this time around… there was an antler deeply imbedded on her flank, and if left like that…

“Get a cart!” Ned called to the men. “We’re riding back to Winterfell!”

 

* * *

 

One of the guards had ridden ahead to get Maester Luwin to the courtyard, but that meant there was quite the gathering of people waiting for them. Jon and Robb had ridden in the cart with the direwolf mother and the six pups. Ned had let out a bittersweet laugh when he saw that the albino, the one he knew was Ghost, had already taken a great liking to Jon, so much as to nose his way into the boy’s cloak and make himself comfortable curled up in the pocket. Jon had laughed and adjusted his cloak to ensure he was safe with the rocking cart, as well as to cover other two puppies seeking warmth.

Rickon was the first to come to the cart once they stopped at the courtyard. He came running, laughing, and with an air of immense happiness on his face.

“Shaggy!” he exclaimed. He was too little to reach the cart, but he stood at the side, jumping up and down. “Shaggy, you’re home!”

Jon chuckled, finding the behavior extremely normal, and just picked up the black pup from his lap, passing him over the side of the cart.

“Here you are, Rickon. I think he likes you already!” Jon said. The boy squealed with joy and hugged his direwolf closely.

“Shaggy!” he exclaimed as the pup licked all over his face. “I missed you, Shaggy!”

But if Ned thought his son’s happiness was amazing, it also brought another round of questions and a headache: just how did Rickon remember Shaggydog? Because he couldn’t miss that which he didn’t know about. And if Rickon missed his pup, then… then Rickon _remembered_ Shaggydog. And that raised the issue: how did he remember and who else remembered?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, Allegra is awakeeee! YAY!   
> Even so, keep sending our girl good vibes, ok?   
> I hope you guys enjoyed it.   
> Can't wait to hear your thoughts!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As extraordinary revelations are made, people must come to terms with things they had once thought impossible.

Feeling a bit nervous, but resolved, Ned entered Jon’s small chamber.

“Son, would you come with me for a moment?” he asked.

“Of course, Father.” The boy got up from his bed, putting the book he had been reading aside. Ned could see a dragon in the drawings. Was he reading about Aemon, the Dragonknight, again? What would he think once he discovered that he descended from the man himself, if rumors were to be believed about Aemon and his Queen Naerys?

He led Jon outside the castle and followed down to the crypts. Jon followed him peacefully, not knowing what awaited him, but unconcerned. They entered the crypts and, one by one, he passed through the tombs of his ancestors, until they reached her.

“What are we doing here, Father?” Jon asked as soon as they stopped before Lyanna. He knew who the statue represented, his Aunt Lyanna. She had been abducted by Prince Rhaegar, then raped and murdered. His father and King Robert had fought a war to bring her back, to no avail in the end.

“Jon, may I tell you a story?” Ned asked and the boy nodded. “What do you know of the Rebellion?”

“Prince Rhaegar stole Aunt Lyanna,” Jon answered, “so Uncle Brandon went to the Red Keep, to the King, to demand his sister back. Then the Mad King arrested him and summoned Grandfather to King’s Landing, so he burned him and Uncle…” Jon’s voice got quiet. “He strangled himself trying to save Grandfather. The Mad King then called for yours and Robert Baratheon’s head and Jon Arryn denied him, so we rose in rebellion.” Jon said.

“The story of the winners.” Ned mumbled. “We always get to hear the tales coming from the winner’s side.” He chuckled bitterly.

“What do you mean?” Jon seemed clueless, completely lost in their conversation.

“What I mean is that the dead would tell a different story,” Ned said. “The dead would begin with the story of a tourney, the greatest event in living memory. The ruins of Harrenhall held a great tourney in the Year of the False Spring.”

“False spring?” Jon asked.

“Aye, the Maesters mistakenly believed winter to be over and everyone celebrated it. That was when the Tourney of Harrenhall came to pass. Lord Whent held a great tourney that gathered people from all over the realm, myself included. Your uncles Brandon and Benjen were there as well as Lyanna,” Ned told him and looked up to his beautiful sister: the stone imagine had nothing on her, she was so much more.

“What happened at the tourney, Father?” Jon asked him.

“My sister was special; she was not like the other ladies. Oh, she would slay you if you even called her ‘lady’,” Ned laughed. “Not unlike your sister Arya — their resemblance scares me sometimes,” he said with haunted eyes.

Jon laughed. Arya was just like that. Maybe that was one of the reasons they got along so well, little Arya loved him regardless of his status, she loved without names or ranks, that’s who she was.

“She saw a man be beaten and injured by three prejudiced squires just for being different. She saw it and she couldn’t help herself, she did what any Stark would do and she grabbed a stick and beat those who tortured the man, sending them away. She was the daughter of the Warden of the North, the squires would not harm her, not that she feared them. She was fearless.” Ned’s smile was nostalgic, he missed Lyanna so much. Even after all those years, he carried ghosts with him and purple eyes haunted him the most.

“So she defended him? She sounds like quite the woman.” Jon smiled innocently to his father.

“She really was. The boy was Lord Reed, a crannogman,” Ned said.

“Oh!” Jon exclaimed. “They are small; they say they descend from the Children of the Forest.” Jon loved his history books, he knew things, and it made Ned smile: Lyanna had had the same curiosity — a disdain for duty and a thirst for knowledge.

“But the most important thing about the tourney was the Knight of the Laughing Tree,” Ned said, intriguing Jon. “A mystery knight, who beat three knights, and the only ransom he demanded was for the knights to teach their squires about honor. Can you guess who those squires were?” Ned asked.

“The ones who beat Lord Reed?” the boy asked and Ned nodded.

“The King was mad, he had been out of his mind for a long time already, and he believed that the Knight not showing his face or asking for anything but for the knights to teach their squires honor was a threat.” Ned could recall the Mad King’s screams of treason as the Knight of the Laughing Tree rode away, escaping the reveal of her identity. “So he sent his son to find the Knight after he ran, he wanted him dead or alive, but the only thing he got was a shield with a weirwood face on it,” he said. “Can you guess who that knight was?”

“Was it Aunt Lyanna? I imagine Arya would do the same if she could. If it meant protecting a friend,” Jon said and Ned laughed softly.

“Yes, it was. The Prince found her, but he did not give her away. He was not mad as his father and he saw that Lyanna was not a threat. He saw her goodness in her actions, but I think he also saw her beauty, but most important, the iron underneath.” Ned recalled.

“So he fell in love with her? But…” Jon was confused. What Father had just said about the side of the winners… was it all a lie? Had the Prince been in love with his aunt?

“Once Rhaegar won the joust, he crowned Lyanna his Queen of Love and Beauty, not just for her beauty but for her bravery,” Ned said, looking up to his sister’s statue. “It shocked us all, I had no clue of Lyanna’s involvement then, her being the Knight of the Laughing Tree, it was Benjen who told me after. While we mourned her, he told me all that I did not know. All that I should have known when I raised an army to do something I imagined to be saving her,” he said mournfully.

“So what happened? What really happened, Father?” Jon was deeply curious. It was the history of Westeros they were speaking of.

“Rhaegar didn’t kidnap Lyanna. Rather, he ran away with her. They fell in love at the tourney and Lyanna did not want to marry Robert. She tried telling me so many times, she did in fact,” he paused to feel the guilt that lived inside him, “but I thought she would grow to love him,” Ned said. “I understood too late that she never would,” he ended in a whisper.

“But the Mad King killed Grandfather and Uncle Brandon!” Jon exclaimed. How could she love the Prince even after that?

“Aye, he did. She did not know it for the longest time, Jon. When she did discover, she was already a married woman,” he said. “A pregnant one as well.”

“What?” Jon’s mind was all over the place. His aunt had married one and birthed another Targaryen?

“When she heard about Father and Brandon, it almost broke her. But Rhaegar was there beside her, he kept her from falling apart,” Ned said. Jon looked up and he could see the tears in his father’s cheeks.

“So why did she die?” he asked.

“Childbed took her. She heard about the Trident and it sent her into early labor,” Ned revealed, eyeing Jon strongly. Jon felt for his family. He could not imagine thinking Arya had been stolen, then fight a war trying to save her, only to find out it had been all lies. Losing Robb over it. Losing her as well. Arya or Sansa. He would fight for any of them. And now he understood Ned’s reluctance to speak about the Rebellion.

“When I found her, she had just birthed a boy,” Ned continued. “A boy she washed in kisses and love, even though she barely had any strength left in her. She asked me to promise her something, to keep him. To love him and to protect him and I did, Jon.”

“A boy?” Jon’s mind was hazy; he could see the pieces but it was hard to put it all together.

“My son in all but name. He has my blood, my love, and my protection. I just could never give him a true name without harming him, offering him to the Stranger,” he said and Jon’s world fell apart.

“You can’t mean…” he said in panic as he looked up to Lyanna Stark’s statue and down back to his father. Jon was a smart one, but now all he felt was lost. He needed to hear him say it. “Just say it, please.” Jon asked, his voice almost a whine.

“Jon, please…” Ned did not know how to say it without breaking everything they had.

“Please say it, Lord Stark,” Jon begged.

“I am not Lord Stark, Jon. I am your father. Lyanna and Rhaegar birthed you, but from the moment that handmaiden placed you in my arms, you have been mine.” The Warden of the North’s voice was trembling. Jon’s lips as well, alongside the tears spilling from his cheeks.

“So I’m not your son?” he asked, seeking confirmation. “No wonder your gods didn’t want me. They told me I didn’t belong here.” He could remember the dreams that haunted him so clearly.

“You will always be my son.” Ned tried to reach for Jon but the boy stepped back.

“I… I’m sorry, I can’t do this right now.”

And Jon ran out of the crypts, with a heavy and broken heart.

“I’m sorry, Lya. I did the best I could, I have loved him just as much as I have loved Robb, Arya, Sansa, Bran or Rickon.” Ned told the statue in front of him. It was not a statue; it was his sister in his mind.

 

* * *

 

Theon and Robb tried to make him get out of his room, so did Arya. Bran tried talking to him as well, but his brother was looking at him weirdly and somehow Jon deduced he knew the truth. Lady Catelyn hadn’t mistreated or ignored him as she used to. She had sent food to his room and it made him think she knew as well.

So that was what this was all about? Now he had noble blood not just from one family, but two, so he was deserving. Now that he was… Oh Gods, he was the Crown Prince, was he not? He remembered hearing about the brutal killings of the Prince’s children. His siblings. Jon cried even harder, the pillow muffling the sounds of his sobs.

He then thought of her, the girl from his dreams. When she appeared in his mind, he felt peace. She was a Targaryen, there was no denying it. She had beautiful purple eyes and long and silky silver hair. She was his. He had dreams of their nights, of lying his head on her chest and feeling her fingers through his curls. Was she his family? Had he… No, he would not think of that. She was the only light in the darkness, he would not soil that. Being a Targaryen or not, he would not let go of his light.

When he thought of light, he thought of her. His mother. She had been noble and kind, she had risked her life to save a friend’s honor. She loved horses and swords, she had loved her Prince but most of all, she had loved him.

Being a bastard his whole life, it was hard to understand the concept that his solitude came out of love. She had given him to her brother and, in fact, Ned Stark had never been his uncle. He was his father.

Jon did not know much about Prince Rhaegar and, honestly, neither did he want to. At least not for now. He had too much to digest and for now he would stick with his mother, the fierce She-Wolf of Winterfell. He was the product of a love that had brought on a war, that had ended lives. He did not know what to make of it. But he understood one thing: the secrecy over his origins.

That night, he did not go down for supper, neither did he eat the plate of food Lady Catelyn sent for him. He only slept, after tons of tears. And he dreamt of her.

She was beautiful and tall, she was slender and strong. Beautiful and willful and dead before her time. She held a crown of winter roses and she sat at the Godswood. She smiled at him, and reached for his hand, which he took feeling every bit the young lad he had not been in years. He felt like a child.

“Don’t be mad at him, Jon. He loves you so much. He worries for you as he lays his head for sleep, he has done all he could to make sure that oaf could never touch you. He saved you for me.” She smiled at his warm cheeks, overwhelmed with the feelings of seeing her and hearing of him.

“He lied to me,” he insisted and he almost felt like a brat.

“He had to. He lied to his wife, to himself even. I think at some point he believed you came from him as well.” She chuckled to herself. Her laughter was beautiful, he wanted to cry.

“I have missed you all my life,” he told her and she smiled.

“I have always been here. I will always be,” she insisted.

“I’m the reason so many people died.” He could not handle the fact that he was the cause of the great rebellion.

“You were not, Jon. It would happen eventually; all the moves had been made. We were nothing but a wind that moved an already moving tornado,” she said wisely.

“I caused your death,” he said.

“You were the reason I lived, my boy.” She smiled. “Your father and I, we have made so many mistakes, but you were never one of them,” she said and got up from the tree. She approached him and held him against her motherly frame.

“Rhaegar and I loved you before we even knew you. Ned has loved you from the moment he saw you. He is your father; he is your protector. Don’t take him for granted, the Gods watch over you, you were promised a long time ago. What he did for you? That’s the greatest proof of his love,” she said and kissed the side of his face, before disappearing with the sounds of knocks on his door.

“Jon?” Ned entered his room, his face tired, his posture low as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Yes, Father?” Jon said. Ned looked up and Jon could see the tears were still there. He approached him and hugged him. “You are my father, aren’t you?” Jon asked.

“I will always be,” Ned said. “You are not just a dragon, son. You are a real Stark, a real wolf. You have always been.” He caressed his hair, and all would be fine, Jon thought to himself.

 

* * *

 

Olenna was bored as she watched her son resist her plan.

“Why would we send Margaery to that frozen land, Mother?” Mace asked her. He was furious with the thought of losing the opportunity to have his child as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Margaery said nothing, she only looked from one to another, quiet and observing as she always was.

“Because she should not be near King’s Landing and because I said so. I will send Lord Stark a raven, asking him to house Margaery for some time, saying we would like to strengthen the relations between the Reach and the North, as we will send them provisions for the coming winter and he won’t be able to deny us,” Olenna affirmed, leaving no room for questioning.

“Mother, I am the Lord of—” he started.

“Oh, do shut up, Mace,” Olenna cut him and Margaery bit back a smile. “I will send letters to Ellaria Sand of Dorne and Asha Greyjoy as well. The future holds no peace and we are in need of distant allies.”

“But Grandmother, should we not seek support from Doran Martell? Ellaria Sand is Prince Oberyn’s mistress, not Dorne’s political leader.” Willas seemed confused.

“Do you trust me, child?” she asked him, though she knew he did. Willas was the smartest of them all alongside Margaery, he knew his grandmother was far from mad or demented.

“I do,” he declared.

“What should I do, Grandmother?” Garlan asked her. Loras was still returning from Storm’s End for a visit and there were only two of her grandsons here.

“I need you to train our armies, Garlan. I need you to strengthen our soldiers. Work on weapons and armors. We need to make sure we are strong enough for what’s coming.” She knew she sounded like a mad woman, but she did not care, as long as they did as she said.

“What war are you speaking of? The realm is in peace!” Mace was outraged.

“Mace, you will speak none of this and you will do as I say. Someone is coming for all of those who sided with Baratheons and Lannisters. We will do no such thing.” She was serious and dangerous on her words, her eyes left no doubt.

Mace left her solar frustrated, while Garlan headed somewhere to fulfil his duty. Only Willas and Margaery were left with her.

“Grandmother, will you further explain things to us?” they asked.

“I don’t know if I should,” she murmured. “I fear they would change their minds if I do anything.” She sounded fearful and the Queen of Thorns was never fearful.

“You are scaring me, Grandmother.” Margaery looked deep into her eyes.

“I died, child. You died as well.” She touched her girl’s face. “So did Loras, Willas, Garlan, and Mace,” she continued.

“What are you talking about?” Willas was confused.

“I do not know what happened and I do not know why, but the Seven have given us another chance, even if I never really believed in them,” Olenna said.

“What do you mean?” Willas asked.

“I died, Jaime Lannister poisoned me, after having you and Garlan killed trying to resist his army,” her face was taken by pain. “You and Loras burned in the Sept of Baelor, actions of the Mad Queen, that Lannister bitch.” Olenna snorted.

“I…” Margaery shivered. “I dreamt of a fire, green fire,” she murmured.

“I don’t know what gave us this second chance, but Starks and Lannisters are about to start a war and we will not side with stags or lions. We are heading North,” she ordered. “I want you to come with us, Willas.”

“What? But… I shouldn’t leave, not with my leg. I should take care of Highgarden,” he argued.

“I can’t lose you, my boy. You will go with us, let Mace rule the Reach for once. Since we are not siding with Lannisters, he won’t be in any danger anytime soon. Garlan is a great warrior, he will protect your father,” she said.

“You make him sound as if he was a five name days old child, Grandmother.” Margaery smiled.

“He seems to think like one, don’t you think?” Olenna laughed and approached Margaery, kissing her forehead and touching her long and silky curled hair. She looked to her side and touched Willas shoulder, “We will make this work this time.” There was no room for doubt on her voice.

“I’ll go look for warmer dresses to be made, it seems I will have need of them.” Margaery said.

“Make them warmer, but don’t hide your beauty, my love,” she said and Margaery just looked behind her, smiling at her grandmother. She nodded and left the room.

“As for you, my love… We will soon have a queen arriving. If she has no interest, we can still find you a beautiful Stark bride.” She smiled at him, who just nodded as well and asked himself if his grandmother had lost her wits, though something told him she did not. He decided to trust his gut and go prepare for their journey as well, as Lady Olenna stayed behind writing letters for Lord Stark, Ellaria Sand, and Asha Greyjoy. It would all be different this time.

 

* * *

 

The family sitting room in Winterfell seemed suddenly stuffy and crowded. Ned had asked to gather the entire family, but hadn’t given any other information. Sansa and Arya had gotten into a fight during their embroidery lesson, since the eldest was planning to make an embroidered bed for her pup, perhaps even a dress and Arya had called the idea ridiculous. What Sansa, obviously, hadn’t been grateful for and had replied with a rude jab and the two had needed Septa Mordane’s interference to stop fighting. Catelyn was also contrary to the idea that her children would raise direwolves puppies as pets, and although she wouldn’t dream of going against one of her husband’s decisions, she was very ill-humoured. And Jon was uncomfortable because being in the same room as Catelyn was always uncomfortable for him. Especially after his conversation with his father the day before. He was still processing the news, but most of all, what really got to him was that he wasn’t that surprised. That there was relief when Ned reaffirmed that he thought of Jon as a son, but no real shock at staring at the statue and hearing that was his mother. As if he had already spent countless hours gazing upon the stone, coming to terms with the truth. He was worried, though, that Ned would tell the family. Jon wasn’t sure he was prepared for it yet. For how Robb and Arya would look at him. Would them, his closest siblings, deny him now? Finally, Ned arrived, Bran trailing after him, and took his place on one of the armchairs.

“Very well,” he cleared his throat. “I'm certain you are all wondering why I have asked you to gather here.”

“Is there something wrong, Father?” Robb asked.

“We don’t have to let the wolves go, do we?” Arya asked anxiously.

Ned chuckled. “No, sweet girl, you don’t. It’s just… well, I don’t quite know how to…”

“I know Rickon dreamt with Shaggy before the hunt,” Bran said. _Better to say it already_ , he thought. “Has anyone else had dreams? Dreams that seemed impossible, dreams about things that you know happened, but that you also know haven’t happened yet.

_Purple smiling eyes; soft sighs by the fire; glowing silver-blonde hair in the moonlight; ‘I’m with child, Jon’; wind washing his face as he soared amidst the clouds; warm scales beneath his calloused fingers, sparkling like jade in the weak sun…_ Jon shivered. Aye, he remembered such dreams.

_Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!_ Sansa recalled. _Thank you for bringing Lady Bolton back. A woman threatening her and then being thrown through a door on the floor by an unknown man. The Knights of the Vale, riding to take Winterfell._

_There is only one god, child,_ a kind man’s voice echoed in Arya’s head. _What do we say to Death? Not today! A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell and I am going home._

_A gathering of Northern lords, all hailing ‘the Young Wolf! Our King in the North!’; being wounded at the Crag, tended by a kind maiden; a dark betrayal; treason at a wedding…_

“What is happening?” Jon asked, suddenly feeling keenly the absence of that other being in his mind. His bond with Ghost was there, growing stronger now that he was startled into the awareness of it, but there was someone else… that presence he had bonded with so recently… it was gone. Muted. As if too far away to connect. In his mind’s eye he saw the spear, the mystery woman’s fall, a roar of fury.

“What Bran means is… what we have to tell you in a bit unbelievable,” Ned said. “It took me a moment to believe, but your brother had a convincing argument. It is…”

“I have come back, from the future,” Bran blurted out, uncaring for his tactlessness. There was no good way to say this. “I asked the Old Gods for a chance to do it all over again. There was a war… the Long Night. The dead marched south and they were winning. They were winning because the Seven Kingdoms had been ravished by a stupid war and we were all at each other’s throats. By the time we united, it was too late. There weren’t enough men to hold them back. The Night King was too strong. And he had already gotten one dragon. Once Daenerys fell, no one could hold hers back. When Jon fell as well, the dragons were—”

_Daenerys_ , Jon thought. An exotic name, a name that evoked good feelings. But who was she? The only Daenerys he had ever heard of was the Targaryen Princess who had married a Martell in a double marriage alliance to secure Dorne.

“Dragons?” Sansa asked. “Dragons are dead.”

“I’m telling you, the Old Gods sent me back so we could change things!” Bran insisted.

“Bran,” Catelyn said gently, “you mean to say that… that you travelled through time? But such a thing… magic doesn’t exist, son.”

“You never believed in anything other than the Seven, Mother,” Bran said a bit drily. “I could tell all of you a few things that would convince you, but I don’t think I need to. You have all had dreams, haven’t you?”

“Dreams are dreams, Bran,” Sansa said with a soft smile.

Bran took a deep breath. He had prepared for this, for his family not believing him. So he had spent time at the godswood, searching for things that might help convince them, like what he had used with Father: a secret that he would only know if his ‘magical dreams’ were indeed real. Looking around his family, he could see Jon was the one who was most convinced. His connection to Daenerys and Rhaegal must have been strong enough to leave deep marks.

“Jon,” Bran called. “Father told you yesterday who you really are. You remember Rhaegal, don’t you?”

“It was dream,” Jon said weakly. “Only a dream.” _Wind whooshing by his ears as the land bellow became ever smaller and farther away, exhilaration thrumming in his blood._

“He has green and bronze scales, his eyes are bronze and they glow with his fire, and his fire is orange-yellow with veins of green.”

“It was a dream!” Jon insisted, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts.

“Drogon, on the other hand, was black and red. He was the biggest of them. He spit black fire and his eyes were smouldering red pits. People called him Balerion reborn. He was terrifying, except with Daenerys, though even she had some trouble reigning him in. As for Viserion, he was the gentlest and the smallest. He was cream and gold coloured, his eyes were molten pits of gold. And when—”

“Beyond the Wall,” Jon cut in, the image flashing before his eyes.

“The Night King killed him first,” Bran continued. “But that wasn’t the only thing you saw beyond the Wall, Jon. Out of all of us here, only the two of us crossed the gates of Castle Black. You once told me that nothing mattered more than defeating the Night King. That you could care about nothing until he was gone. Because you had looked into his eyes.”

And then the image of his foe was made clear in Jon’s mind. Chilling, cold, detached. An enemy that had too much power and nothing to lose. An enemy that relished in death.

“Remember what you saw Beyond the Wall, Jon,” Bran insisted. “You went there, to get proof, to prove to Cersei that the war needed to end. You sent for Daenerys for help and she came. And the Night King slew Viserion out of the sky.”

Jon could remember it, like a play being enacted inside his head. The wights coming, thinking it was all lost, that he would die, again, this time forever, and then the dragons came raining fire from above. The spear flew and took Viserion down. He yelled at Daenerys, his silver lady, to go and then fell into an opening of the frozen lake. And then…

“Uncle Benjen…”

“He sent you off and stayed back to stall them,” Bran pressed on. “He knew he couldn’t cross south of the Wall, but he needed to save you. Like he had saved me a few moons before. It was not a dream, Jon. You know it wasn’t. Alysanne wasn’t a dream.”

Now Jon staggered back, recoiling as if he had been burnt, falling back onto an armchair. _Alysanne_. The spear flew by him and he commanded ‘dracarys’ as Rhaegal banked, bathing the land beneath with his green fire. A second spear flew, straight to where Drogon spit his own black fire. And he didn’t have time to manoeuvre. The spear hit Daenerys straight on, jolting her out of Drogon’s back, making her fall down the sky like a doll. When Jon reached her, she was already gone, her violet eyes opened but unseeing, their baby girl also gone inside her, too small to be saved.

Bran saw that Jon was convinced, however much in shock he was right now. So he turned to Arya. “You had dancing lessons in King's Landing,” he said.

“I’ve never been to King's Landing,” Arya said weakly, even as the images popped up.

“Not in this life. But in this other life, in this future I come from, you have. His name was Syrio, Syrio Forel. He was the one who first taught you to use Needle.”

“Septa Mordane teaches us needlework,” Sansa cut in.

“Not that Needle,” Bran smiled. “Arya, what do we say to Death?” She looked at him scared. “Arya, you remember, don’t you? Fleeing the city, Syrio’s last words. You said them to me when we were fleeing Winterfell, fleeing from the dead. The Kingsguard had come and Syrio told you to go. What do we say to Death, Arya?”

“Not today,” Arya whispered.

Bran smiled and turned to Sansa. “You were Cersei’s hostage.”

“Queen Cersei is a great lady,” Catelyn said, but Sansa only stared at her brother.

“She wasn’t very kind, was she?” Bran insisted, ignoring their mother. “After Robert died, she had nothing but scorn for you. And Joffrey was cruel and sadistic. Do you remember what happened every time Robb won a battle?” Sansa shivered, a feeling of doom taking her over. “And Robb didn’t lose any battles.” Bran turned to his brother. “You were the green boy no one expected, Robb. You began the march south because of what Joffrey did to Father. What happened at Oxcross? At the Whispering Woods? Jaime Lannister? And you went to the Crag. Do you remember the Crag, Robb? Do you remember getting married?”

“The wedding…” Robb murmured, fractured images passing before his eyes. “But it wasn’t my wedding. It was… there was an old man…”

“That was the wedding at the Twins. It wasn’t where you married, no. But there was a wedding, wasn’t there?”

“You yelled at me to run,” Robb said turning to Catelyn. “Why?” he turned back to Bran. “You just said I didn’t lose any battles!”

“And you didn’t,” Bran said simply, bringing a small smile to Ned’s face. “You won every battle you ever fought. And still, you lost the war. You lost the war the same way Father did. You had too much honour. Too much honour for dealing with politics.”

Jon suddenly exclaimed in pain and shock. Rickon had stood from his place on the rug and thrown himself on his lap. And Jon remembered the last time this happened. But it couldn’t… it was too terrible to contemplate.

“He said he would kill me in front of you, Jon,” the boy said with his little head buried in his brother’s chest. “He said he would kill me first, because I was the last of Father’s trueborn sons, but then his army would defeat yours, and he would have Winterfell and he would take Sansa back and he would kill you and so he would be safe because the Stark name and blood would be dead. No more sons, bastards or trueborns. Only Sansa.”

The image came unbinding into Jon’s mind, the big expanse of green planes just outside of Winterfell, burning crosses on the enemy’s side, flayed men banners flying in the morning’s breeze as Jon raced atop his horse, trying to reach a much older Rickon, who ran towards him. Only to see him pierced by an arrow just before he could reach him.

“Bolton,” Jon spoke through his teeth, that same feeling of failure and anger racing through his veins. He squeezed his brother closer. “I'm sorry, Rickon. I failed you.”

“I had never seen some ride so fast, Jon,” Rickon said. “You made the impossible to get to me.”

“This is nonsense!” Catelyn exclaimed. “You have all had strange dreams and now you are trying to make…”

“Catelyn, listen,” Ned said. “This is the truth.”

“Where is the proof?” she insisted.

“Bran knew of a secret, a secret I have never uttered out loud and which I am sure that the only other person in the entire North who knows also has not spoken of it.”

“What secret?” Arya asked.

“The Rebellion was a lie,” Ned said, making everyone in the room stiffen in shock and Jon hugged Rickon tighter, knowing what was coming. “Lyanna was never kidnapped or raped.” He glanced at Jon. “She ran away with Rhaegar. The details… honestly, the details are hazy even for me. But Lyanna and Rhaegar ran away together and they got married. So when I found Lyanna… she didn’t… she didn’t die because she had been raped.”

“Then how did she die? And why… why keep it a secret?” Robb asked.

“Because she died in childbed,” Ned revealed. “And if I had told people this, then her son would be in danger. Because her son, Rhaegar’s son, was born the heir to the Iron Throne. A throne Robert had already taken.”

“Their son?” Sansa asked. “But where… so we have a cousin?”

But Arya and Robb made the leap. A boy Ned Stark had brought home from the south, one he had claimed as son but had refused to name the mother. A boy who looked like a Stark and therefore must have a Stark parent.

“Jon?” Sansa asked when she saw where her siblings were looking. “But… Jon is… he isn't our half-brother?”

“No,” Arya said and Jon felt the urge to cry. “Don’t be stupid, Sansa. He is our _brother_. Nothing can ever change that.”

Jon looked up from the crown of Rickon’s head. “You mean that?” he asked weakly.

“Now you are the one who is being stupid!” Arya exclaimed exasperated.

“It seems black really is your colour,” Robb said. “Except it’s _red and black_.” Then he widened his eyes. “Oh. Bran said… you have dragons!”

“If you don’t take me for a ride, then I really will stop thinking of you as my brother!” Arya said excitedly.

Jon chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of it, little sister,” he said. How had he ever doubted her?

“This is all non-sense!” Catelyn exclaimed. “There is no such thing as magic! There can’t be! Bran, what you had — what all of you had — was a dream.”

“Dreams about the same thing, Catelyn, but from different views?” Ned asked gently. “I know it is asking a lot, but—”

“Magic — is — not — real!” she insisted. “I can’t… I cannot believe in a future in which we all died horrible deaths. Nor in a foe that exists only in Old Nan’s tales. Tales, I would like to say, I always disliked her telling you. You should be hearing about the Seven Pointed Star, then you wouldn’t have your heads so filled with nonsense!”

But Bran had come prepared for that possibility as well. And it was perfect for this that they were during the time of summer snows. So he opened the window — to Sansa’s and their mother’s protests — grabbed an icicle hanging there, then went to the fireplace and grabbed a burning twig.

“Are you going to perform a ritual or something?” Robb asked.

“Of a sort,” Bran said. “Rickon, I need you to step back.”

The boy complied and, before Jon could do more then frown in confusion, Bran put the icicle in his hand and, as he reflexively closed it to hold the melting ice, Bran pushed the twig against it. Ned, Catelyn, and the siblings all protested, Jon yelped in surprise, trying to pull his hand away but then relaxed in astonishment. After a moment, Bran took the small torch away and threw it back on the fireplace as Jon let the nearly melted off icicle fall to the floor. Arya rushed over and pulled Jon’s hand closer.

“It’s… it’s not…”

“It would have burned if I had kept it there longer,” Bran said. “But as it was, it won’t even get a blister.”

“I’m… I’m…” Jon blinked, looking over his hand. “I’m fireproof?”

“Not exactly,” Bran replied. “And you are even less resistant than Daenerys. Because she is more Targaryen, she is very resistant, she can withstand very high temperatures. And her dragons’ fire won’t hurt her. Whether it is because she is a Targaryen or because of the way she hatched them we don’t know. We can’t know, because there were no more Targaryens to test the theory. But you… Jon, you are the song of _ice and fire_. You do withstand fire, though less than Daenerys, and only Rhaegal’s fire didn’t hurt you — we believe because you were his rider — but the only way you resist fire as much as Daenerys does is when you’re also holding on to ice. You are two parts of a whole, Jon. Two halves, never before mixing.” He then turned to the rest of their family. “Do you believe me now?”

 

* * *

 

Jon was pacing in his bedchamber, conflicting emotions taking over his heart: first, there was the whole madness of having lived a hopeless future in which all of his family had died, in which he had died; on the other, he was shaken by the idea of Daenerys. The woman in his dreams. A woman he loved so completely, but, at the same time, he had never actually met. Only the sound of her name rose inexplicable thoughts in his mind, but she, actually, was a stranger.

He had just woken up from another dream and at the same time that his body felt alive with what he remembered — reaching out to feel green warm scales under his calloused fingers, a radiant smile in the face of his most beautiful queen — he was also concerned. Where was she? Father had said that the Targaryen children, the survivors of the Rebellion, Daenerys and Viserys, had fled to Essos and Bran had confirmed that Daenerys was there and she had all of her memories intact. But was she safe? Was she well? He still didn’t have all of his memories, but only the thought of Viserys Targaryen, his uncle, made Jon feel unexplained anger. Clearly, the man had done something unforgivable in a future they would never go to. And now Daenerys, his aunt, his wife, his heart, was alone at this man’s mercy.

Jon couldn’t allow that. In this other life, he had had no idea about Daenerys Targaryen, their blood relation, or even her troubles until it had been too late to help her. But now he had. He remembered her smile, her face, her shining eyes, her soft skin under his hands. He needed to know she was safe. And Bran’s ominous “she is the Mother of Dragons. She must become the Mother of Dragons”, didn’t soothe him in any way. Worry was an ugly emotion. He had gathered, from the flashes of memories he had recovered, from what he knew of himself, from what Bran had told them of her, that Daenerys was no helpless maiden sitting in a tower, brushing her hair, and waiting to be rescued. Still, she was a young girl alone in Essos, how safe was she? So Jon sat at the desk of his new chambers — chambers in the family room and no longer the little room fit for the lord’s bastard — and reached for quill and paper.

He begun to write her name, but Daenerys seemed improper, something his memory poked him about. So he took a fresh piece of paper.

 

_Dany,_

_Bran assures me that you remember. I hope you will forgive me, but I do not remember everything yet, though I think I remember enough. I hope you will not be disappointed. I do not remember much about your situation right now, but every time I think about it I am filled with such anger that I know I need you away from wherever you are. Please, Dany, come here, come to safety. We have plans of our own, but you will be safe here, I guarantee it. I need to know you are safe. Even if I do not yet remember all that we lived through. I am sorry I am not the man you loved._

_I shall be waiting impatiently for your arrival._

_Yours forever,_

_Jon_

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are so sorry! We know it took forever to update, but real life has been beyond demanding and time for joint writing was scarce. But we are here now and we hope a bit of a longer chapter will help in making it up :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our players continue their journeys as their memories begin to unfold.

Daenerys closed her eyes and took a deep breath, stomping down the ‘queen’ and summoning the subservient little sister inside her. It was not easy. How had she ever bowed down to Viserys’ whims? _The Dothraki taught me strength_ , she thought to herself one more time, _but I learnt it by my own merit_.

She was wearing one of the two dresses she owned now, the one she knew to be her brother’s favourite to parade her around. She had taken great pains to make sure it was pristinely clean yesterday and the heat of Essos had allowed it to dry overnight.

Her plan was simple, yet it had a major complication: it depended on the agreement of her unpredictable brother. She planned on manipulating him into going to Pentos and searching asylum with Illyrio now — the sight of Daenerys would certainly entice the Pentoshi, because he would be more than eager to ‘protect’ her for his Blackfyre son, so she could give him legitimacy later on. _It still baffles me how Illyrio arranged my marriage to Drogo, when he intended to give me to the black dragon all along_ , she thought. It had been why Illyrio had given her the dragon eggs, so they would reach the fake Aegon Targaryen without ever connecting father and son. _A dangerous bet, that is certain. A very roundabout way to get rid of Viserys_.

She shivered, remembering the anger that had consumed her in that other life when the news about the survival of Rhaegar’s alleged son came. They had just discovered Jon’s true parentage when their spies sent information about their invasion via the Stormlands, with the Golden Company and elephants and all that. And then, obviously, her outrage at discovering that the mummer’s dragon had forged an alliance with Cersei Lannister. _The declaration of your fake identity_ , Dany had thought then. _No men would ally, much less marry, the daughter of the man who had brutally murdered his mother and sister, the widow of the man who had killed his father, especially when he had the military force to take her down_. But Blackfyre knew he couldn’t defeat Dany, Jon, their armies, and the dragons. He needed the paltry force Cersei still had, but more than that, he needed King's Landing. And Cersei could live for months behind the walls. The pretender couldn’t afford to wait her out nor lose men in the attempt to take the city.

But no matter — that life was over. This time, Dany knew about the pretender, as a matter of fact she knew he was sailing up and down the Rhoyne in the _Shy Maid_ right now. _Perhaps I should deal with you before going east… but no_ , she decided. She didn’t have the men to get rid of the pretender now, even if he didn’t yet have the Golden Company at his back and call. She was alone, terribly alone. Besides, if she left for Meereen unmarried, if she made Illyrio believe she dearly expected her nephew had survived the Sack… perhaps the Pentoshi Magister would fall for her trap and send his son to her. _Unfortunately, I doubt it would be this easy_. Jon Connington had proved to be cunning, despite stupidly falling for Illyrio’s play and believing he was really raising Rhaegar’s son.

And besides, the most urgent now would be to get her sons. Get her sons, leave Pentos, go to Volantis, and, with luck, find Melisandre or Kinvara (preferably both) and get their help to reach Astapor. Then she could continue with her conquest. It might be a simple plan, but she knew it would be very, very complicated. And she still had to track down Jorah!

But the first step was to convince Viserys. So that was her focus tonight. _That_ shouldn’t be too hard. All she needed was to appeal to his vanity. At least in that her brother was reliable.

 

* * *

 

He had been traveling for almost an entire moon turn now. Jaime was tired and his mind and body were growing restless with the imminent arrival. After waking up to this weird reality where nothing came out of the horrors he had lived, Jaime realized it was early. Way too early.

Myrcella was only twelve name days old, Tommen but a boy. Jaime wrote a letter to Casterly Rock, praying to all the Gods that Tyrion received it and not Father.

Father.

Father still lived here, he breathed and plotted, what a weird thought. Jaime had grown used to the death of Tywin Lannister. However, after seeing his family in a true light, he realized the sort of man Lord Tywin had always been.

Father used to say he was the stupidest Lannister. Well, he must have been right, considering Jaime had never been able to see his father for what he truly was. Or Cersei for that matter. So Jaime took all that he had, leaving only his Baratheon breast plate — he was no Kingsguard to a Usurper. He would make things right and Jon Snow would be his chance, Daenerys Targaryen would save him as well.

He remembered promising Rhaegar to protect his family, he remembered reality, and he remembered the fever dream that took him after he had lost his hand.

He did not wish to hear those voices again, not with the amount of sadness and anger he had that time. No, he would honor his Prince and his promise.

He would protect his only remaining son and his sister. Hells, he would protect Viserys Targaryen as well, if that was what it took.

Regardless of what awaited him. Jaime knew he would be considered a traitor, but he was already named Oathbreaker and Kingslayer, how much worse could it get? No, he would honor his words now. He had to — for Rhaegar, for his fallen brothers, for Brienne.

If he ever found his soul, it was because of her. She was worth everything.

He could see the stone walls in front of him now. The snows were not half as bad as the last time he had been here, when darkness was taking over the sky. No, this time it was cold, but normally so. No sparkling sky, but a shy light over him, and when the horns sounded, he expected to be received with hostility: Jaime had no idea who knew what had really happened or who remembered. Cersei certainly did not.

 

* * *

 

_The sound of the door opening awoke him suddenly. Jaime opened his eyes and he could see a golden sparkle reflected under the moonlight. She was so beautiful; how could he not remember her being this beautiful?_

_Because madness had not yet touched her, he knew, although her soul was already claimed by darkness. Melara Hetherspoon, the kitchen wench that stole a kiss from him, or that first whore that Robert took to bed right after wedding and bedding Cersei._

_Cersei was a possessive woman and jealousy had always inhabited her soul. ‘How could I never see this?’ he thought_. _How to accept it now, when she has not yet harmed me?_

_“Kiss me, Jaime,” she asked him, her hands traveling across his body, but he pushed her away slightly._

_“No. I’m sleeping Cersei,” he said and turned the other way, trying to find his way back to sleep._

_“You can sleep after I tire you,” she said and he grew annoyed, pushing her away once again._

_“Cersei, no,” he said and she let out a breath._

_“What is going on, Jaime?” she whispered, upset._

_“I don’t feel so well,” he said and she threw herself at him once again._

_“I can make you feel so much better,” she whispered to him sensuously._

_“No, you cannot. Go back to your bed, Cersei. You’ve made it, now lay in it.” He knew she had not yet done most of her wrongs towards him, but it was hard to let go of the grudges he kept inside._

_“Jaime, you are acting so strangely.” She sounded frustrated._

_“Get out of my bed, Cersei. I am trying to sleep, I have a full day tomorrow: your husband demanded I be there as he fucks some more whores and wenches,” he said unnecessarily angry, but suddenly not caring. He wanted her gone. After a fortnight of thoughts on what he should do, her presence here answered him._

_He needed to go, to leave, he needed to be away from her, their father, Robert Baratheon, and all that would lead him back to the dishonorable life he led the last time._

_‘I hope I still have time, my Prince. I will protect your son, Prince Rhaegar. I will look after your daughter, my Queen,’ he promised himself as Cersei silently left his room. A few moments later, it was still the hour of the wolf as he packed up his things and left, hoping to never go back unless it was protecting the realm’s true King and Queen._

_It made his heart ache to feel the anger he felt towards his sister, but he could not fool himself into thinking that she would ever change. He did not want to fear her, but after knowing what she was capable of… he had to._

_He knew the cost of believing her blindly, he remembered it very well. Brienne’s burnt face, his nearly fatal injury when he tried to convince her to yield. That was not love — Cersei only loved their children, Jaime was her own vanity and a way to getting what she wanted._

_“You spent the last fortnight with that pig on his stupid hunt. I have missed you, brother,” she had whispered to him before leaving his chambers._

_‘I hadn’t missed her,’ he thought. Not after all she had done. Funny that Daenerys Targaryen would be the one to save him from his blood, when he had spilled hers._

 

* * *

 

Benjen woke up scared. The dreams that took over his mind at night were too real, too painful. _Jon. Fire. Death. Lyanna’s embrace, Brandon’s smile. Ned’s hug._ As he woke up, he realized where he was. He was at the Wall: he felt his toes freeze and the blood barely circulating through his cold body.

“Jon,” he gasped as the memory got back to him, so he got up and did not even bother to dress up further, he needed to see him. Benjen remembered it all, he needed to help him, he needed to make sure Jon lived.

“Benjen, fuck—” He stumbled upon the Lord Commander, who was startled by the outburst.

“I need to find Jon,” Benjen said. “I need to make sure he’s safe. He’s surrounded by Walkers, Lord Commander, we need to search parties for—” Benjen seemed out of himself. Until he felt eyes all around him.

“Benjen, who is Jon? Whatever do you mean?” The Old Bear did not seem to understand him.

“Are you speaking of your nephew?” Will asked him.

Benjen turned to him, confused. ‘ _Wait, Will? Will is dead. Ned executed him, he fled the Wall_ ’, he thought. He then looked around him to find faces of worry, mockery, curiosity. No one seemed to understand his words or even his behavior.

“Maester Aemon said to send him for him, he can help,” one of the young recruits said, and the Old Bear shook Benjen, finally catching his attention.

“Benjen. Control yourself. You are at the Wall, your nephew is at Winterfell. You were only dreaming, son,” Mormont told him.

‘ _Nothing happened yet. Jon is still at Winterfell, Will lives, I am here. What sort of sorcery is this?_ ’ Benjen wondered. ‘ _In a world of White Walkers, all is_ possible,’ reason spoke inside his mind.

He felt himself directed to Maester Aemon. He was not new to the path, but it almost felt as though his body had lost control of itself.

“Maester Aemon? We have Benjen Stark to see you,” a voice said, he did not have in it him to identify it.

“Bring him inside,” the Maester’s soft voice answered.

Benjen was sat at a table, but he did not want to lie down.

“Maester Aemon, I am not crazy. I saw it all. I saw what is coming, I dreamt of what we are about to face,” he said after the man left the room.

“Benjen, you were never one to lose your wits,” the Maester said.

“I saw them, Maester Aemon. I saw White Walkers, I saw their army of the Dead. I saw the fall of a dragon, it was far and it was snowing, but I saw it all,” he said and the Maester turned to him as if he actually saw what his eyes could no longer see. “Do you believe me?” Benjen asked.

“Rhaegar saw it too. It cost too much,” Maester Aemon said and Benjen shuddered at the name. It had been quite some time since he had last heard it and it brought back painful memories.

“I swear I am not lying, Maester Aemon, I saw it. They almost killed Jon, I tried, but somehow he fell, he died, I know he did, I just know.” Benjen whined, something so out of character for him.

“Jon?” Maester Aemon asked.

“My nephew,” Benjen whispered.

“Ned Stark’s bastard?” the old man asked.

“No, Lyanna’s,” he whispered even lower.

“Oh.” Maester Aemon exclaimed.

A pregnant silence took over the room. Benjen’s thoughts of Jon were roaming over his mind, while the old Targaryen maester thought back on the memories of his dreams, of the dark-haired boy fighting the dead, of his dark grey eyes with an almost-indigo glint to it. His eyes had lost their power but his dreams still allowed him to see. He was a dragon, and a dragon could see more than most.

“Have you ever heard of the tale of Azor Ahai, Benjen?” Maester Aemon asked after a while.

“I have not,” Benjen replied.

“Well, I will send for the boy to find you some clothes, some furs, I can hear your teeth chattering. The night is dark and full of terrors, they say. But it is long enough for the tales I have for you.” The Maester got up from his chair, slowly walking across his chambers.

“You believe me?” Benjen felt relief overtake him.

“I no longer see, but I dream as well, Lord Benjen,” Aemon said and opened the door, sending the steward to bring them tea.

_‘What is happening? What did you send for me this time, Lya? Am I losing my mind?’_ he wondered, but the memory of Jon surrounded by wights and a dragon struck and falling from the sky was still too recent. Too raw. The feeling of darkness and loss too ingrained in his mind.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys sat on the hard floor, staring into the big fire in the hearth, where her sons lay. Warming up, telling them it was nearly time, though she knew this fire wouldn’t be able to hatch them. _Only death can pay for life_.

Getting them from Illyrio had been almost too easy — she had only needed to sneak into his solar once in the middle of the night and her connection to Drogon had led her to their box easily enough. The next day, she manipulated the conversation into having Viserys offend Illyrio and his dead wife to get them kicked out of the manse and then she told Viserys that Volantis was the nearest big city, where their Valyrian ancestry would be most cherished. He had quickly agreed and they had been on their way. She was still hoping Melisandre would be in the Red Temple when they arrived. After all, it was still years before she had gotten the visions about Dragonstone and mistakenly gone after Stannis Baratheon.

Dany nearly jumped up with the cawing from the window, startled with her sudden visitor. The raven cawed again and Dany frowned — ravens were not native to Essos and here there were no maesters to command them, so how… _Bran!_ she thought and then rushed to the window, her heart racing when she saw the scroll tied to the raven’s leg. What so grave had happened that, instead of communicating through dreams, Bran had taken the risk and warged into a raven to lead it all the way here? She unrolled the scroll with trembling fingers, but then her face broke into a smile. _Jon_.

 

_Dany,_

_Bran assures me that you remember. I hope you will forgive me, but I do not remember everything yet, though I think I remember enough. I hope you will not be disappointed. I do not remember much about your situation right now, but every time I think about it I am filled with such anger that I know I need you away from wherever you are. Please, Dany, come here, come to safety. We have plans of our own, but you will be safe here, I guarantee it. I need to know you are safe. Even if I do not yet remember all that we lived through. I am sorry I am not the man you loved._

_I shall be waiting impatiently for your arrival._

_Yours forever,_

_Jon_

 

_Oh Jon!_ Her sweet Jon, her beloved Jon, her King, her nephew, the other half of her battered soul. If he had been insecure and unsure in regards to feelings and social situations before, as an adult — regardless of the great leader and commander he was —, it had nothing on his younger self. She could almost hear his voice in her mind, fumbling for the right words, mumbling frustratingly when they escaped him. He might not remember, he might not yet be shaped by all the terrible things that had happened to him in that dark future they would now fight to ensure never came to pass, but he was still every bit the man she loved. It soothed her heart in a way she hadn’t imagined possible, nor that she needed it so badly.

Her first instinct was to have a change of clothes and her sons packed into a satchel and head to the nearest port to search for a ship heading northwest, but then reason spoke louder. She couldn’t go home, not right now. She might have decided against completely following Bran’s plan, but she knew she had things to do before she could finally cross the Narrow Sea. Before she could go home and hug her husband and drown in his embrace and suffocate in the happiness being in his arms brought her. Before they could try to save their people, before they could try to rebuild their family. Before Alysanne, their miracle, could have a chance to be more than a distant dream, a wish of broken heart.

Reaching that conclusion didn’t make the decision any easier to make. Once again, she wished she was no one. A fisherman’s daughter, a village girl with nothing to her name. And that Jon was the boy living a few houses away in their small village and so there would be nothing and no one telling them they couldn’t be together, that they had duties. All she wanted was a house with a red door, a lemon tree in their front garden, filling their small home with its lovely smell, and their children running around, playing and laughing.

But she was the Mother of Dragons. She was Daenerys Targaryen and she had people depending on her, depending on her to have freedom, to have their lives, to be safe. She could not be selfish. She would not be.

 

* * *

 

Willas, Margaery, and Olenna were at sea, heading for Winterfell — halfway there after so many days adrift.

“What do you remember from the life you spoke of, Grandmother?” Willas asked.

“Margaery and Loras burned at the Sept of Baelor, that hideous bitch burned them all,” Olenna said — the always sharp Queen of Thorns had a voice touched by sadness. It was a rare occurrence. “Mace was there as well.” She looked from Willas to Margaery.

“You wed thrice, my love,” she told Margaery, who seemed affected by the news. “You first wed Renly, who played with Loras sword way more than any knight should — the handsome fool got himself murdered by his brother. But then Mace decided you still had to wear a crown, so you wed Joffrey Baratheon, or Waters, should I say: the boy is no stag nor lion, he is nothing but a rabid dog that got himself killed at your wedding,” she went on and both Margaery and Willas were terrified at the amount of misery they had lived through. “Tommen was your last husband: you tamed that cat, but the boy would never be a lion. He was too sweet and stupid for it. His mother had him on a leash, he was never truly yours.” Olenna snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past Cersei to bed her own son just to make sure no one else became queen,” she finished cruelly, poison in her voice.

“Grandmother! Surely the Queen would never bed her own son!” Margaery seemed mortified: the girl was still too young, too naïve. Olenna would make her see reality soon enough, though she would like for Margaery to be allowed innocence for a while longer.

“She bedded her brother and all her children were his. So it is not so far off, is it, darling?” Olenna said, knowing she was exaggerating but her anger towards the lion bitch always got the best of her.

“Continue, Grandmother,” Willas said.

“Cersei gave the Faith weapons and then told them of Loras and his tastes. They questioned you about it and you protected your brother, as the true good-hearted sister that you are, my darling,” Olenna said, caressing the girl’s soft curls. Willas smiled: it was quite clear that Margaery and himself were favorites of her, but Margaery was Grandmother’s little flower.

“They locked Loras away for swallowing his swords and you for lying for him. Before the trial, the bitch burned the Sept of Baelor and everyone in it. With the wildfire Aerys Targaryen had placed underneath the city,” Olenna said bitterly.

“He did what?” Margaery asked, her mouth half-opened.

“Yes, but worry not, it was not all flowers for the Lannisters either, I assure you two. Robert was killed by a boar, something Cersei must have arranged, no doubt. Then your stupid second husband cut off Ned Stark’s head, which brought war upon the realm: his son brought winter to Tywin Lannister’s door until he perished over a broken betrothal and their murder at the Twins. Jaime Lannister lost his hand and his morals; Tyrion was accused of killing Joffrey, then he escaped, killing the Old Lion. That was when it all fell apart for us all,” she said, taking a deep gulp of her Arbor Gold.

“How so?” Margaery asked.

“All of Grandmother’s deals were with Tywin Lannister. Cersei has no military brain or political mind at all, right?” Willas asked — his mind was sharp, unlike Cersei’s.

“You are right, my boy,” Olenna said, drinking again. Such memories required big amounts of wine. “After your deaths, I went back to Highgarden. I was invited to Dorne and so Garlan took me there. Lord Varys then made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Olenna finally smiled her famous wicked smile.

“Dorne?” Margaery was confused and Willas seemed to be too.

“Prince Oberyn fought against the Mountain for Tyrion Lannister, at his trial by combat. The beast crushed his skull and if the Lannisters were already hated south of the Red Mountains, they became even more so.”

“What offer did Lord Varys have for you?” Willas asked.

“Fire and Blood,” she said with a smile. “Daenerys Targaryen was on her way, with an army of Dothraki and Unsullied, and three fire breathing dragons. Even Doran Martell had to let go of his grudge against them and I found myself once again a Targaryen Loyalist. Willas was sent to Dragonstone and I met him there with Garlan. We had everything set up to strike Cersei and her forces. She was Queen then, in her own right since her silly boy killed himself: Margaery managed to charm him deeply, but who could ever resist you, my dear?” Olenna touched the girl’s face with warmth.

“Renly, apparently,” Margaery said with humor.

“Yes, but you lack the sort of embellishment he likes, my dear,” Lady Olenna answered. Both of her grandchildren smiled.

“So? What happened then?” Margaery asked. She had to admit that it was bittersweet to listen to her grandmother speak of a time when she was no longer alive. Although it felt good to know that Olenna had found her revenge.

“You stayed at Dragonstone, Willas, while the Martell girl teased you to no end, your flushing was quite endearing, my darling.” It was Willas’ face she touched this time, the man flushed again. “You stayed to help Queen Daenerys strategize while I left with Garlan to bring back our armies,” she said.

“I…” Willas seemed to have flashes of a dark-skinned girl teasing him: it felt like a dream but seemed like a memory.

“What is it?” Olenna asked.

“Did I go North?” Willas asked, he remembered red hair, white snows, and so much fire. Black fire, orange-yellow fire… blue fire. It was so far from his reach but it was as though the memory was right there.

“I wouldn’t know, my son,” Olenna said.

“What happened?” Margaery asked, already knowing the words that would follow.

“I died. Jaime Lannister poisoned me. He killed Garlan and he gave me a poison to which I slept and woke up to this,” Olenna added.

“He never got to meet his child, did he?” Willas asked.

“Whatever do you mean?” Margaery asked.

“Leonette was with child,” he murmured.

“How can you know that?” Olenna asked through half-closed eyes.

“I think I’m starting to remember,” he whispered.

“Then you know.” Olenna did not expect the boy to remember. It hurt too much.

“I do,” he said. “So much destruction.”

“Ambition. We aimed too high, not knowing the vicious cunts we would find. That is why this time I will not leave room for error,” Olenna said.

“Whatever do you mean?” Margaery asked.

“This time you won’t be queen, dear. You will be the Lady of Winterfell,” the Queen of Thorns answered. Willas saw the merit in it, while Margaery only feared her future. After learning of what she had to go through the last time, she feared what would come for her this time.

Willas did not say, but other things came to mind. Ice monsters, dead dragons, a fallen Wall. No, it could be nothing more than dreams, so he stayed quiet and drank his wine. Mayhap this time they could change their future, they had the right pieces of the puzzle now.

Margaery could only think on how the Faith of the Seven failed her last time, so now she sent a prayer to the Old Gods: ‘ _Watch over me and mine, it is the only thing I ask_.’

Rain broke up in the sky and Margaery was taken aback. She remembered when she was younger and Alerie used to tell her that rain was the sign of the Gods sending them confirmation. She hoped her mother was right.

 

* * *

 

Jon and Robb were sparing while Bran spoke to Rickon. One could mistake the scene for a moment between four regular brothers, speaking of swords and things.

However, Bran had spoken of Daenerys and Alysanne, Ser Davos, Sam and Edd for Jon. All of his dreams coming out from Bran’s lips, so now he could name the faces he only seemed to know when he was asleep.

As for Robb, he was not half as pleased as Jon. He had caused his mother’s death and his own. He had wed and lost a girl whose family had planned his death: Jeyne. Her name was Jeyne, according to Bran. She belonged to House Westerling, maybe that was why Robb seemed to know so much about the Westerlands’ House. It hurt to know he had caused so much death. Even if the memories of brown eyes and brown locks charmed his dreams.

Jon thought of Daenerys: after discovering the name of the silver haired goddess he found in his dreams, he wondered if she had received his letter, if she did indeed remember him. She had called him the sweetest names and they had shared moments that made his heart race. If there was love in this world, it had to be it. It had to be her.

Jon remembered a red-haired woman as well — she was not beautiful, but she had some beauty in a way. She was angry and seductive at the same time, but something about her arms felt wrong. When she reached out for him, he always backed away. He belonged to Daenerys, his heart told him — and he agreed.

She was his and he was hers. No one else. Nothing else. So he would leave the red-haired behind, walking towards the woman he now knew it was his wife, the one who would bear his child.

Alysanne.

A second Alysanne Targaryen, very Targaryen, a bit Stark. Maybe she would have been the mix of the Good Queen Alysanne and the Brave Alysanne Blackwood, or Alysanne Stark. The thought of having a child warmed up his heart in ways he did not know he could be warmed up.

Jon remembered Benjen’s words: _“You don't know what you're asking, Jon. The Night's Watch is a sworn brotherhood. We have no families. None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor.”_

They had been his family, until they killed him. Jon had just wanted to help Arya, even if he now knew it hadn’t been her. He had wanted to save his little sister and they had murdered him for it.

But he sought a Queen’s help and she became his family. Without even knowing she had always been a part of him.

No, this time around there would be no Night’s Watch for him. He would help Bran, Robb, and Father to save Westeros from the Long Night. Ned Stark would always be his father, even if it had been Rhaegar Targaryen to sire him.

He felt something tightening inside him. He wished he could know more of his blood father. He wished he knew Rhaegar’s character, his mind, and his heart. One thing he would never have.

Lyanna Stark was being revealed to him by her brother’s words. She was just like Arya — she had been _beautiful, willful, and dead before her time. Highborn and beautiful_ , just as he had begged the Old Gods for her to be, when he was younger.

It was hard to forgive Lady Catelyn for her treatment, but maybe one day. She never apologized for hating him so much, but she had changed behavior, she was kinder and warmer. Jon did not know how to feel about that.

Meanwhile, as Jon thought of the information revealed to his eager heart, Robb mourned his destroyed future, the one he would make sure that would never come to be.

“Robb!” Jon screamed. Robb had cut a bit of Jon’s arm and Ghost approached them to lick the young man’s wound.

“Ghost, that will infect it!” Jon complained and Robb tried helping, going to call the Maester, Grey Wind on his back.

“Daenerys got your letter,” Bran announced out of nowhere. Jon was holding his arm, awaiting Maester Luwin.

“Will she come here?” he asked eagerly.

“No,” Bran stated. “She is the Mother of Dragons, she will find a way to hatch her eggs once again,” he murmured.

“Real dragons, Bran?” Little Rickon asked marveled, his head supported by Shaggydog’s belly.

“Real dragons, Rickon. The Queen rides Balerion come again, while Jon rode Rhaegal,” he said with a smile and the boy chuckled.

“See, Shaggy. We will see real dwagons,” the little boy said and the wolf seemed to snort. Jon chuckled, but his heart was aching. He did not know her, but at the same time he knew her so deeply. He wanted Daenerys here, he wanted her safe.

“I must go to her, I can’t leave her to the miseries she had to live through.” Jon was anguished. Bran smiled.

“Jon, this is Daenerys Stormborn we are speaking of, she will find a way to come to you. This time, she will never become anyone’s doll, she will be everyone’s Queen, the Mother of Dragons, the fiercest Dragon Queen. The lives of Westeros depend on it.” Bran was small, but his voice was wise.

“What am I needed here for?” Jon asked, frustrated.

“We need a King to sit on the Iron Throne. You are the Prince Who Was Promised, the heir to the Iron Throne,” Bran said and Rickon clapped. The boy had no clue of the seriousness of the words of his brother.

“I want no throne.” Jon shook his head.

“It’s not a choice, Jon. Under Robert, only destruction comes for Westeros,” Bran said.

“And you think I am anyone’s salvation?” Jon asked sarcastically.

“You are the last hero come again, we need you,” Bran insisted and a crow with three eyes approached them. The crow looked at Jon and the young man saw it.

A flashing light showed him ice demons, a silver queen, a little girl in a pretty red dress, Sansa being torn apart by ravenous dogs. Arya cutting off her own face. Robb had Grey Wind’s head on his neck. Lady Catelyn seemed like a ghost from centuries ago, white creamy complexion marked by grey and blue spots of rotten skin. His father looking at him from the Sept of Baelor, a bald man cutting of his head, which stopped by his feet, staring at him frightened. Rickon begging for his help, his mouth spilling blood, arrows through his chest. Bran being swallowed by darkness, death eating his flesh, tearing up his soul.

“STOP IT!” Jon exclaimed, the tears gathering in his face.

“Jon, here’s Maester Luwin.” Robb approached with the Maester, who brought his tools. The cut had been bigger than he realized, so Jon cried as the Maester cleaned his wound, but it was not from the pain of the torn flesh. It was his torn soul, still weeping because of the horror scenes he had been showed.

“I will sit in the throne. I will never let any of this happen,” Jon whispered to Bran. No one else could hear, but he knew the boy did, for the raven flew away, and no one else knew what the boy had seen, none but Bran.

“We can do this, this time the living will win,” Bran said and Jon nodded.

“We have to,” he whispered and left the yard as the Maester finished his bandage, Ghost following him as he got up on his horse and rode somewhere else, needing silence and space. Only his wolf running after him, Ghost was a part of his soul. Daenerys was another.

_‘Old Gods and the New, guide me in this quest, I don’t know if I am what Bran expects me to be. I am just Jon. A simple bastard_ ,’ he thought to himself, heading to the Wolfswood.

A voice deep and gruff answered him: _You were never a bastard, son. You were the Prince Who Was Promised, you will bring the Dawn. Believe in yourself, we do.”_ Jon stopped instantly.

Had it been… him? He did not know, he took several deep breaths, and continued his journey. He needed the peace he felt in the loneliness of the dry forest. He came down from his horse and sat by a tree, sitting between its roots. Only his friend there for him. _‘Ghost, we will live this time. We will find a_ way,’ he thought. The wolf licked his face and Jon smiled. Ghost cuddled up to him and Jon stayed there for hours, lost in thoughts of the past, the present, and most of all, the future.

 

* * *

 

The family was gathered in the family room when Jory came.

“Lord Stark, there is a man at the gates, he claims to need to speak to Jon.”

“Jon?” Ned frowned, worried. No one ever looked for him, so, if this person did, did he know who Jon was? “Who is it, Jory?” he asked.

“He claims to be Ser Jaime Lannister, my lord,” Jory answered and Ned was filled with anger. He was starting to remember as well and remembered Jaime facing him outside Littlefinger’s brothel.

“This man is an enemy, he swore to give back Sansa and Arya and he did no such thing,” Catelyn said. Little by little, everyone seemed to be remembering bits and pieces of their past miseries.

“No, please, don’t,” Jon appeared before them. Both Starks stared back at him with incredulity on their faces.

“This man betrayed his oath, Jon. He almost got me killed.” Ned was confused.

“He saved me, many times. I… I remember.” Jon said and Ned could not believe his ears.

“Jory, bring him here, with four guards around him,” Ned said.

“Father, Ser Jaime is not an oathbreaker, he is a hero. He was the Lord Commander of my Kingsguard,” Jon said, shocking all of the Starks around him, except for Sansa and Arya, who kept remembering more and more with each night.

“Aerys Targaryen wanted to burn the city, he sent his pyromancers to light up the city, turn everything to ashes. That was why Ser Jaime killed him, Father,” Bran said in his young yet wise voice.

“Why did he never say anything?” Ned found it hard to believe, or at least he did not want to, having hated the man his entire life.

“Did you ever let him?” Bran asked Father, staring back at him. Ned realized he had not. He had never given Jaime a chance to speak.

“Lord Stark,” Ser Jaime said as he arrived. “My King.” Jaime bowed to Jon.

_Oh, this was going to be a long night_ , Catelyn Stark thought, finding it all very hard to believe.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys smiled when she recognized the room around her, a wave of good memories filling her: her dream had brought her to the state room of her ship. The room where Jon had bent the knee on the journey south from Eastwatch, the room where they had stopped resisting the pull between them on the journey north from Dragonstone.

“Daenerys?” his rough voice called.

“Jon!” she exclaimed, turning around, smiling ever wider. He looked much, much younger — so did she, for that matter, but Jon’s face was young and unblemished. Gone were his scars, at least physically. She was certain he still carried them on his soul, just as she did.

His arms didn’t hesitate in tightening around her in a hug as she threw herself in them, a muscle memory his brain was still catching up to. Her smell was familiar and spread warmth inside, a smell of fire, spice, of a storm waiting to fall. He sunk into the embrace, feeling comfort like he had never felt before, but, at the same time, seemed so familiar. It was a duality he was struggling to conciliate, but was so eager to accept.

“Do you recognize this place?” Dany asked when they finally broke apart, seeing his guarded eyes and remembering his letter.

“Flashes,” Jon said. “Something important happened here.”

She chuckled. “I think I will let you remember by yourself. It wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise.”

“Where are you?” Jon asked, deciding to leave memories of the past for a later time. When the dangers of the present were not pressing them, for example. “Bran said that you got my letter, but you’re not coming.”

“I cannot, Jon. I wish… more than anything, I wish I was. After I read your letter… my first impulse was to get my sons and rush to the first port town I could find. But I can't. A lot of people count on me, depend on me to have freedom. Thousands of innocents, of friends, of _children_ , live in chains because of the greed of a few people. I was once chained down by my brother, forced to marry against my will. I was never a slave, but I know the pain of not being free, of being commanded by the whims of another person. I cannot let it stand, Jon. Not because I was selfish. I can free them. I will. I _must_.”

Jon smiled minutely. He had grown up hearing Lady Catelyn’s and Septa Mordane’s version of the perfect lady, of the perfect wife, and it had never appealed to him. What use did he have for a woman who sat in her tower, brushing her hair, waiting for a rescue and a song? A woman like that would never bring comfort when things were hard. But Daenerys was the exact opposite. She not only didn’t stand the tower, she had knocked it down and thrown the debris back onto those who stood in her way. She didn’t wait for the rescue and the song, she rescued herself and the minstrels sung about her. She fought, tooth and nail, for the betterment of the world, not only for her own vanity. His worries about being with her only because he knew it was what had happened in another life vanished just then: he would never _not_ love her. She was inescapable and he was only too eager to forever be entangled in her web. But then the other part of her speech registered.

“My uncle… he…” Jon took a deep breath. “I don’t remember what he did, but you just said he forced you to get married…”

“He sold me off to a Dothraki horse lord in exchange for an army to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. An army he was never going to get.”

“You need to get away from him, Dany!” Jon said, worried now. “I understand that you must free the slaves, but you _must_ get away from Viserys!”

“A dear friend, my first Queensguard, once told me that Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake. He is right. My brother had power over me because for a long time all we had was each other. Because I believed he was the rightful king and therefore I must do his bidding. That has long changed. Viserys never had what it takes to be a king. He will never have the Seven Kingdoms because he cannot take them. He would never have been able to endure what I did, to survive the desert, to hatch dragons, to free slaves, get armies, sail west. He would have — he did die in the attempt.”

“So you left him behind?” Jon asked.

“No,” Dany smiled. “Even after everything, he is my brother. I shall bring him with me and show him how I am the rightful Queen. How _you_ are the rightful King. How the two of us will bring back the glory of our House.”

“He is dangerous, Dany. He will—”

“He is a bully, Jon. And all bullies are cowards. Viserys more than most. He preys on the weak, but he cannot fight back against a stronger person. I have been manipulating him into thinking he is calling the shots because it is the easier choice. But soon we will meet with Jorah and be on our way to the Bay of Dragons. Then I shall tell him _I_ am the one giving the orders.”

Jon huffed. “I trust you. But I don’t like it.”

Dany laughed. “You really are different than the rest, Jon Targaryen!” she said and he shivered. It was the first time someone called him that. “I will be fine, I promise. I will hatch my sons, free the slaves, be a different queen, then I will come to you. And we can save our people from the monsters beyond the Wall. And we will be different together.”

_If you melt castles and burn cities, you’re not different. You’re just more of the same._ Jon remembered.

“Father is calling a few of his bannermen, to start preparing and fortifying the North,” he said. “He plans to visit Castle Black soon.”

“You mustn’t cross the Wall, Jon,” Dany cautioned. “The Night King will sense it and start moving south faster.”

“I know. Bran said as much. I… Father doesn’t even want me to go to Castle Black, but I know I must. I remember a few things about the Free Folk, I believe I can convince them to work together. Even if I'm not very good at talking.”

“You have no idea, do you?” she chuckled. “You don’t need fancy words to reach people, Jon. I had three dragons and all my conquering was through strength. The Targaryen name served me nothing in Essos and I think it was more hurtful than helpful in Westeros. But you… Jon, you convinced the Free Folk to trust the Night's Watch after centuries of enmity; you led the Northerners to take Winterfell back and they named you King not because of a birthright, but because of your courage and your actions; you convinced me to accept dead men marching south. You convince people to listen to you not because you have dragons or a birthright or any military might: you convince them because your words, simple as they might be, resonate truly and touch their hearts and minds. That’s your strength, Jon, and it’s much more important than your skill with a sword. And that’s saying a lot, considering the Northerners called you ‘the finest swordsmen that ever was’. And you led our armies through the war.”

“We lost that war,” he pointed out, blushing.

“Because we lacked preparation, warriors, and knowledge about our foe. Because the rest of us took too long to believe you. Because the Kingdoms had been decimated in a vanity war, because there was little to no food left to feed our people. How could we win? But things will be different now. We know more, we will be prepared for more.”

Jon nodded. Then he looked around.

“I remember wolf dreams… Bran’s told me about warging into Ghost. But that’s not what’s going on. What is this?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “This has never happened before. But we are magic, Jon. Is there really anything that would be impossible?”

_The people who follow you, they follow you because you made impossible things happen. Maybe it makes them believe that you can make other impossible things happen._

He chuckled, going to sit by her where she patted on the bed. He didn’t know what this was or if it would be a regular thing or not, but he planned on enjoying every moment he could with her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!!!!
> 
> In our timezone it's still 36 minutes to midnight, meaning it's still Christmas, so we are not, technically, sending a late Christmas present :P
> 
> We hope you enjoyed this! We know it's been a while, but RL has been incredibly busy. But here we are with a huge chapter :D

**Author's Note:**

> Let us know what you think, comments and kudos mean a lot to us!  
> Hope you enjoy reading it as same as we are enjoying writing it.


End file.
